Economist Miguel Ceara Hatton, who is the national public policy secretary for the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), issued a press release late last week to dispute the government claim that the country has moved up 22 slots in the recent grading by the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. Ceara Hatton says the statement by the president of the Conep and the CNC is misleading. He says the 2018 report corrects how the data is analyzed, and thus the misleading improvement. He explained that on the contrary, the competitiveness of the country is stalled. He explained that because the government compared two different methods, the statement by the National Competitiveness Council is incorrect.
He says that in effect, the World Economic Forum in the report establishes in a precise manner that the “Global Competitiveness Index 4.0” of 2018 presented methodological changes not comparable with previous years of version of the Global Competitiveness Index. In fact it is only comparable with a new calculation for 2017 when the 4.0 methodology for 2018 is applied. In other words, the statement by the government that the country has improved 22 positions is the result of an error in comparing numbers from different methodologies.
The economist notes that this is something that the change in methodology is repeatedly warned throughout the content of the report on the 2018 Global Competitiveness Index. He explained that when the Global Competitiveness Index is constructed with the same methodology used in 2018 and 2017, just as it appears in the report from the World Economic forum for 2018, the Dominican Republic positioning does not improve. Of 135 countries examined for both years it will be of note that in 2017 the position of the Dominican Republic was #82 on a scale of 1 being the best and 135 the worst, the DR at a grade of 55.6/100 and in 2018 it is in the same position (#82) with a score of 57.4/100. This is to say that the country did not move in its positioning, although it did register an improvement of 1.79 points.
Ceara Hatton stressed the urgent need to improve the nation’s competitiveness and productivity in order to increase its exports and deal with the challenges of improving the quality of life of the population.
Read more:
El Dia
World Economic Forum
Global Competitiveness Report
22 October 2018
