October 18, 2018 – The 2018 Global Competitive Index is out. How did Croatia fare? Some good, some bad – a rather accurate snapshot of the modern Croatia.
How competitive is Croatia?
A closer look at the very detailed 2018 Global Competitiveness Index just published has some rather fascinating data about 140 countries included in the study, which are all ranked on a number of diverse topics, from terrorism threat to cleanliness of drinking water, from ease of hiring foreign workers to attitudes to entrepreneurial risk.
As with most (but not all) countries, Croatia fares better at some things than others. Let’s start (as we always do at TCN) with the positives – where did Croatia perform well? The rankings in brackets are where Croatia stands in the report out of 140 countries included.
Electrification rate (1), Shareholder governance (5), Quality of roads (17), Railroad density (17), Terrorism incidence (27), Reliability of water supply (28), Quality of land administration (31), Homicide rate (33), Mean years of schooling (37), Fixed-broadband internet subscriptions (37), Pupil-to-teacher ratio in primary education (39)
And then we come to the things that Croatia does not do so well. Remember, the numbers in brackets are how good a country is out of 140, so 139 would mean you are the second worst in the world.
Ease of hiring foreign labour (139), Efficiency of legal framework in settling disputes (139), Cooperation in Labour-employee relations (139), Burden of government regulation (138), Attitudes to entrepreneurial risk (137), Critical thinking in teaching (136), Hiring and firing practices (135), Efficiency of legal framework in challenging regulations (135), Internal labour mobility (134), Extent of staff training (131), Companies embracing disruptive ideas (128), Ease of finding skilled employees (124), Property rights (122).
I will leave it to others to interpret and comment on the numbers above (and the screenshots below give more details), but one of the statistics which caught my eye was the Business Dynamism section. How dynamic is Croatia in the business world out of 140 countries included in the report? Croatia came in 81st place.
Comparing that with the region:
Slovenia 24
Lithuania 44
Albania 48
Montenegro 50
Macedonia 57
Serbia 59
Bulgaria 61
Romania 64
Greece 72
Hungary 75
CROATIA 81
Bosnia and Hercegovina 106
On the global scale, Croatia found itself, in terms of business dynamism, behind the likes of Kenya (63), Guinea (65) and Zambia (77).
Check out the very comprehensive 2018 Global Competitive Index here.
