Qatar ranked sixth internationally in economic performance in 2020

Doha: Qatar achieved the sixth rank out of 63 countries, mostly high-income countries, in Economic Performance in 2020 in The World Competitiveness Yearbook 2020, which is published annually by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) located in Lausanne of Switzerland.

Qatar ranked 14 internationally according to the results which confirm Qatar’s strong performance across various fields. The ranking was based on national statistics as well as opinions of sample businesses managers who provided their views of Qatar’s economy competitive climate.

Areas, where Qatar ranked highly in the report, included economic performance (ranked 6), government efficiency (ranked 7) and business efficiency (ranked 11). Moreover, Qatar has maintained its ranking at 40 for infrastructure.

Qatar’s rank has been positively influenced by many factors including strong economic performance as represented by, Qatar’s low unemployment rate (ranked first), high percentage of gross fixed capital formation, capital investments, and saving to GDP (ranked first for all three), percentage of trade balance to GDP (ranked first), the high overall productivity (ranked first) and low inflation rate (ranked third) whereby other factors had negatively influenced the rank as real GDP growth per capita (rank 58), Office rents (rank 52), Business expenditure on R&D % (rank 57).

Commenting on the findings of the report, the President of Planning & Statistics Authority HE Dr Saleh bin Mohammed Al Nabit stated that “these results confirm the solid overall performance and that the results will certainly help us to identify areas for further improvements”.

He added that “Qatar’s Second National Development Strategy 2018-2022, sets out clear goals in the areas of economic infrastructure and private sector development that will lead to economic and social growth.

Chief Economist, IMD World Competitiveness Center Prof. Christos Cabolis said: “Landing itself an impressive 14th place globally, Qatar has proven to be impressively resilient to crises. As by the end of 2019 the global economy was already starting to look shaky, and although our rankings show that Qatar was among of the first to show tangible signs of this, compared to other economies, Qatar quickly reacted.

Something that resulted in dropping only in our short-term measurements, while ensuring long-term indicators such as health, education and business finance continued to improve in line with Qatar’s long-term trajectory.”

“This is a sign of a crisis resilient economy, especially in the face of a global downturn. We expect Qatar to be one of the first to rebound from the current global situation.”

Qatar’s competitiveness assessment in IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2020 is a collaborative effort between International Institute for Management Development and Planning and Statistics Authority.

The State of Qatar has contributed to the IMD Competitiveness Yearbook for the 12th time.