Thursday, September 29 2005 14:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New York: India and China now rank very close to each other so far as the competitiveness of their economies is concerned, an analysis by the World Economic Forum shows.

In its new report released yesterday (Sept 28, 2005), the Forum ranks India at 50th position, just one rank below China in the Growth Competitiveness Index. But the encouraging news for New Delhi is that it has moved up five places compared with last year while China has dropped three ranks.

The authors explain that the lowering of China's score is the result of a slight deterioration in its macroeconomic environment. India, they say, improved its position because of higher rank in the area of technology.

Both India and China, they say, have an excellent growth performance in recent years. However, both continue to suffer from institutional weaknesses, which, unless addressed, are likely to slow down their ascension to the top tier of the most competitive economies of the world, the authors warn.

Interestingly, Russia is way down at 75th position. India gets overall 4.04 points compared with China's 4.07. Pakistan with 3.3 points gets a ranking of 86 among 117 countries ranked by the Forum. But it has moved up by three points. Sri Lanka is ranked 98 with 3.1 points but the discouraging news for it is that it gets 25 rankings lower than the last year when it was placed at 73.

Bangladesh gets 110 position with only 2.86 points, dropping eight ranks. For the fourth time in five years, Finland gets the top position following by the United States , Sweden, Denmark, Taiwan, Singapore, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and Australia.