Ireland in the Global Competitiveness Report 2012-13

The latest Global Competitiveness Report has just been released and can be accessed here.  Some interesting statistics on Ireland can be gained from the report.

Notably, Ireland has improved its competitiveness ranking from 29th (which it held for the last two years) to 27th.  Increased competitiveness is views as enabling an economy to grow more rapidly (and in the case of Ireland may have implications for recovery).  However, this ranking of 27th, while good, is comprised of some worrying outlooks on the Irish economy.  For instance, Ireland's macroeconomic outlook is ranked as 131st.  Indicating the high level of uncertainty regarding Ireland's growing debt and the ability of the Irish economy to recover following the recession.  It also reflects Ireland's budget problems and high debt to GDP ratio.  Ireland's Financial Market Development is ranked at 108, again indicating a high level of uncertainty regarding the financial institutions in place in Ireland.  It also takes into account the difficulty of getting finance from various sources.  Indeed, when asked the most problematic factor for doing business in Ireland business reported a lack of access to finance as their number one problem.

So overall, while Ireland's competitive position has increased slightly from previous years, there is still a large amount of uncertainty surrounding the macroeconomic environment (government budgets, debt etc) and the financial system (access to finance etc).