Germany has fallen two places in the last year in the ranking of the competitiveness of the world's leading economies, published by the international business school IMD. The country was ranked sixth in 2014 and has lost 18 positions in 10 years, according to the IMD's annual report.
There are 67 countries in the current ranking published on June 18 on the website IMD, with Singapore, Switzerland and Denmark occupying the top three positions. Experts lowered their estimates for the German economy based on criteria such as the domestic economy and the labor market. At the same time, the FRG gained additional points in terms of international trade and foreign investment.
As the Süddeutsche Zeitung writes referring to the authors of the study, German companies and the state apparatus are particularly “inert and inflexible“ in an international comparison. “Many countries around the world are much more flexible,” said Arturo Bris, who heads the IMD's research group on economic competitiveness.
He explained that productivity in Germany is at a high level, but is no longer growing. According to him, both the state apparatus and private companies need to modernize, in particular to more actively introduce elements of the digital economy.
IMD has published the competitiveness rating of the world's leading economies since 1989. It is calculated on the basis of about 250 criteria, divided into four groups: economic indicators, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure. When preparing the report, both statistical data and the results of surveys of company executives around the world are taken into account. In 2024, 6.6 thousand managers were surveyed, more than 100 of them from Germany.