Romania has managed to go up four positions among the most competitive economies, ahead of Slovenia, South Africa, Jordan, Argentina, Bulgaria, Greece, Ukraine, Croatia and Venezuela, according to a ranking conducted by the Swiss business school IMD.

According to the ranking, the most competitive economies are Hong Kong and the US, both achieving the maximum score of 100 points. From the Central and Eastern Europe, the economy ranked the best is the one of the Czech Republic, followed by Estonia, which has become more attractive than Poland. In the region, Bulgaria and Ukraine are less competitive than Romania, that recorded 57 points.

Technically, the Romanian economy emerged from recession in the first quarter of this year, when it a GDP growth of 0.6 percent was registered, compared to same period of last year. The GDP growth was fuelled by the evolution of exports. Bulgaria had the highest growth in exports of 59 percent, followed by Lithuania with 51 percent, Malta with 49 percent, Estonia and Latvia both with 45 percent, Romania with 42 percent and Greece with 39 percent. At the bottom of the ranking stays Venezuela, that got only 35.2 points out of 100.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com