Chile Continues to Be the Most Competitive Economy in Latin America

The World Economic Forum rated Finland as the most competitive economy in the World, followed by United States. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Chile leads the pack with a distant Uruguay as runner-up, Mexico, El Salvador and Colombia behind, according to the latest release from the organization.

Mercosur´s two main economies had a disappointing performance: Argentina managed to advance to place 72 and Brazil dropped from 57 to 65.

“Latin America has only one country, Chile, with a competitiveness level ranking among developed countries”, said the Forum´s head economist Augusto Lopez-Claros of Bolivia.

Behind Finland and the U.S. come Sweden, Denmark, Taiwan, Singapore, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and Australia. Chile ranks 23rd on the overall list.

The WEF Competitiveness Growth Index, which includes 117 countries, is made up of the technological level, public institutions soundness and macroeconomic conditions plus the “perceptions” of 11.000 businessmen about several aspects of the countries.

The model has been developed by U.S. economists Jeffrey Sachs and John MacArthur, but some countries have criticized the “subjectivity” of “perceptions” and consider the methodology has “insufficient analytical basis” and “is not too serious”.