According to a new report released on 18 May 2009 by IMD, Israel slipped three places compared with last year and its overall competitiveness in the world now ranks 24th.
The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) is the world's most renowned and comprehensive annual report on the competitiveness of nations ranking and analyzing how a nation's environment creates and sustains the competitiveness of nations.
The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2009, which ranks a total of 57 economies, analyses competitiveness along 329 variables, grouped into 4 categories: economic soundness, government efficiency, business, and infrastructures.
Israel's rankings fell in all categories.
In the overall rankings, the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and Denmark were ranked in the top five while China slipped to 20th from 17th a year ago. Taiwan dropped to 23rd from 13th and South Korea moved up four positions to 27th. Meanwhile, Britain maintained its position at 21st and Thailand went up one rung to 26th.
This year, due to the global financial crises, IMD added a "stress test", aimed at examining how "countries can resist adversity and show resilience to weather the storm". Israel was ranked 20th, ahead of Japan (260, the United States of America (28) and the United Kingdom (34).
