From among neighboring countries, Romania is outranked only by Bulgaria, which is at 54 in the 2014-2015 Global Competitiveness report released Wednesday. Hungary is one spot behind Romania, at 60, while Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Serbia are not among the top 70 most competitive economies.
In the EU, Romania outranks Hungary, Croatia, Greece, Slovenia and Slovakia. The Romanian economy is the 50th most efficient in the world but does poorly in terms of innovation, at 78.
Efficiency criteria include access to education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness and market size.
Innovation includes capacity for innovation as well as business sophistication.
By basic requirements, such as institutional development, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment and access to health and primary education, Romania ranks 77th.
The biggest factors hindering business development in Romania are lack of financing sources, high tax levels, poorly developed infrastructure and corruption, the report shows.
The world’s most competitive economy is Switzerland, followed by Singapore, the United States, Finland, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Netherlands, UK and Sweden.
The WEF global competitiveness report analyzes 144 economies.