Responsible development may be the shortcut to a competitive economy.
Sherine Nasr reviews the findings of the latest competitiveness report.
No sooner does Egypt adapt itself to a global economic system than new realities emerge. The race goes on, dictating a necessity to adopt new strategies to deal with these new realities.
“Towards the end of the current economic crisis, the world will be waking up to a new global economic system,” said Minister of Foreign Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid upon the launching of the sixth Egyptian Competitiveness Report (ECR) on 30 June. “Where Egypt stands depends largely on its ability to read through the changes in progress and the ability to adapt quickly and efficiently to those changes,” Rachid added.
Issued by the Egyptian National Competitiveness Council (ENCC), the ECR, entitled Beyond the Financial Crisis: Competitiveness and Sustainable Development continues to strive to bring insight and solutions to Egypt’s development discourse.
An alarming fact has been underlined by this year’s report. Although Egypt’s score on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) has been relatively stable over the last couple of years, its ranking has fallen from 77 out of 131 countries in 2007-2008 to 81 out of 134 nations in 2008- 2009. “This means that other countries are moving ahead of us. If we’re not making progress, we are in danger of deteriorating,” said Rachid.
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