Invest in Finland

Finland ranked sixth in Global Competitiveness Index

10/09/2009

For the third year running Finland has been ranked in sixth in the the Global Competitiveness Index 2009-2010, published this week by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Finland has improved its competitiveness scores in a number of areas, for example in financial market sophistication, technological readiness and the number of Internet users. As in previous years, Finland continued to score highly in areas like the availability of scientists and engineers, university-industry collaboration, the quality of the country’s health and education systems, the reliability of the police force, and the quality of the country’s institutions. WEF classifies Finland firmly as an innovation-driven economy.

“According to WEF’s analysis, the effect of the current economic crisis on Finland’s competitiveness is neutral,” says Petri Rouvinen, Director or Research Director at Etlatieto Oy, which is a sister company of ETLA, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.

WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index is compiled from both hard data and responses by business leaders to WEF’s questionnaire. This year 133 countries were included in the index. The rankings are based on scores on 12 pillars of competitiveness, each of which has 5-19 variables. The 12 pillars are institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation.