Nigeria ranked amongst world’s poorest competitive countries

Nigeria dropped five places from last
year’s 115th position to 120th.
Despite the efforts to diversify the
economy and attract investors by the
Jonathan administration, Nigeria is still
ranked among the stragglers in the Global
Competitive Index (GCI) 2013 -2014
released Wednesday by the World
Economic Forum .
Nigeria dropped five places from last
year’s 115th position to 120thamong the
148 countries profiled.
The GCI, which was introduced in 2004,
measures how the set of institutions,
policies, and other factors determine the
level of productivity of a country. The GCI
scores is calculated by drawing together
the 12 pillars of competitiveness namely:
institutions, infrastructure,
macroeconomic environment, health and
primary education, higher education and
training, goods market efficiency, labour
market efficiency, financial market
development, technological readiness,
market size, business sophistication and
innovation.
According to the ranking, Nigeria is
placed in the poorest pool of economic
development possible. Nigeria ranked as
a “factor driven” economy with the likes
of Liberia, Lao, Mali and Yemen.
There are four stages of development with
innovation-driven economies being the
best pool of nations.
It worries the compilers of the index that
Nigeria’s economy is struggling to keep
up despite overt advantages over other
African countries. For instance, the report
noted that Nigeria, due to its population,
enjoys a large market size (32ndposition)
“which has the potential for significant
economies of scale and is an important
factor for attracting investors.”
It identifies weak institutions (ranked at
129th out of 148), engrained corruption,
undue influence, weakly protected
property rights, insecurity (ranked at
142nd), poor infrastructure (ranked at
135th) and poor primary education
(ranked at 146th) as the reasons for the
country’s abysmal rating.
It also points to the overreliance on oil
and the poor penetration of ICT as the
other reasons for the country’s poor
showing.
Meanwhile Mauritius has overtaken South
Africa as the most competitive country in
Sub-Saharan Africa. Ranked at 45th
position the country moved up nine places
this year, the country’s enviable showing
is bolstered by “transparent public
institutions (ranked at 39th) with clear
property rights and strong judicial
independence and an efficient government
(29th),” the report noted.
South Africa is ranked at 53rd position
while Switzerland, ranked at number one
is the most competitive country in the
world.