Prague, Czech Republic – The Czech Republic secures its position as the most competitive economy in Central Europe, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
According to the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Report 2019, the Czech Republic ranks as the 32nd most competitive economy in the world, and first in Central Europe, despite losing three spots compared to last year. The Czech Republic fares particularly well in the area of macro-economic stability (tied at the 1st position in the world with a number of other countries), infrastructure (20th worldwide) and human capital skills (29th).
Placed 37th worldwide, Poland comes second among Visegrad countries ahead of Slovakia (42nd) and Hungary (47th), the latter being part of the five least-productive economies in the European Union.
According to the WEF report, which outlines grim prospects for the world economy and notes that “ten years on from the global financial crisis, the world economy remains locked in a cycle of low or flat productivity”, the least competitive economies among EU member states are Croatia (62nd worldwide), Greece (59th), Romania (51st) and Bulgaria (49th).
Since 1979, the World Economy Forum releases an annual competitiveness ranking for 141 economies around the world to analyze “the set of institutions, policies and factors” that determine the country’s overall level of productivity based on over 100 indicators.

Here are the top 10 most productive economies in the world, according to the World Economic Forum’s analysis:
- Singapore
- United States
- Hong Kong
- Netherlands
- Switzerland
- Japan
- Germany
- Sweden
- United Kingdom
- Denmark
China and Russia are ranked 28th and 43rd respectively, while India lags at the 68th position slightly ahead of Brazil (71st).
According to WEF, the least competitive countries in the world are almost all located in Sub-Saharan Africa:
- Chad
- Yemen
- Congo
- Haiti
- Mozambique
- Angola
- Burundi
- Mauritania
- Venezuela
- Madagascar
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