There can be no downtime in remaining competitive

The UAE and Qatar continue to jockey for the top regional positions as far as business competitiveness is concerned. The UAE is in currently in the lead but Qatar keeps trying hard.

Notably, of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, only the UAE and Qatar are ranked in the annual IMD ‘World Competitiveness Yearbook 2015’. The IMD based in Switzerland publishes an annual report about global economic competitiveness since 1989.

The latest report provides rankings for some 61 nations on a range of economic, social and demographic variables, with a particular emphasis on business efficiency. Qatar saw its ranking improve by six notches, a substantial improvement in a single year to clinch the 13th position in the 2015 report.

The enhancement reflects progress made in overall productivity improvement. This ranking places Qatar just below the UAE, the best performer in the MENA region.

However, UAE’s ranking fell by four notches from eighth last year. Even then, the rankings put the UAE and Qatar ahead of most EU countries, including the UK, France and Italy. The Asian economies of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are ahead, indicative of the determination of Asian nations to compete effectively on the global stage.

The World Economic Forum, also based in Switzerland, however provides rankings for all the GCC countries in its ‘Global Competitiveness Index’ (GCI). The 2014-15 Global Competitiveness Index gives ranking of 144 economies including those of the GCC.

Again, the UAE emerge as the best performer in the MENA region on the back of achieving the 12th ranking on GCI’s 2014-15 report, up from 19th position in the 2013-14 survey. This translates into the UAE enhancing its ranking by 7 notches, enough to overtake Qatar as the best regional performer on WEF’s study.

For its part, Qatar maintained its position as No. 16 worldwide, though coming at the expense of surrendering regional supremacy to the UAE. In this, Saudi Arabia ranks ahead of numerous European and Asian economies. But it did lose four positions to settle at the 24th place globally, due to its efforts at limiting employment opportunities for foreign workers.

The Nitaqat project presses for the employment of locals at the expense of overseas workers. The practice of restricting job opportunities undermines economic competitiveness.

Similarly, Kuwait lost four notches to 40th, due to the row between the government and elected parliament over economic priorities.

Yet, Bahrain’s ranking fell only by one to be place 44th. The ranking is not exceptional, as Bahrain competes with the UAE and Qatar in the financial services sector on the regional level.

Oman’s ranking plummeted by 13 places to 46th, reflecting limited economic competition within. Clearly, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait have to exert fresh efforts to enhance the competitiveness of their economies to attract and retain businesses.

n an ever competitive world where some 200 nations are competing to do the same, the Gulf states will have to continue creating jobs, especially for locals, and ensuring sustained foreign direct investments, especially into infrastructure schemes.

The writer is a Member of Parliament in Bahrain.