| Bulgaria fell to 74th position out of 142 countries in the world competitiveness ranking compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for 2011-2012. However, the score of the country improved to 4.2 points (up from 4.1 in the previous report). For comparison, the score of Switzerland, which tops the ranking, stands at 5.74. Bulgaria is among the worst performing members of the EU, according to the ranking, and is followed by Romania and Greece only. From the other countries in the region Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina also lag behind Bulgaria. The study covers 12 pillars: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation. Bulgaria is worst positioned in the area of institutions (ranking 110th) and best-performing in the area of macroeconomic environment (46th). Poor marks are assigned to business sophistication, innovation, infrastructure, and goods market efficiency. The most problematic factors for doing business in the country are the corruption, the inefficient government bureaucracy, the inflation, the access to financing, the inadequate supply of infrastructure, the inadequately educated workforce, the tax regulations, the poor work ethic in national labour force, and the tax rates. The country moved up by 5 positions to 71st place in the study last year. The survey on local institutions and other non-quantitative indicators used for the ranking is carried out by the Centre for Economic Development, which is the partner of WEF for Bulgaria. |
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