Investing in digital infrastructure, training, research and development ... The World Economic Forum (WEF) has established a list of eleven avenues to revive growth after the shock of the pandemic, in its annual report on competitiveness, unveiled Wednesday.
Published every year since 1979, this report reviews the pitfalls, revealed or amplified by the health crisis, in terms of competitiveness, but also analyzes the factors that have helped countries to manage the pandemic more effectively.
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For this edition, the authors of this report published by the World Economic Forum, known as the Davos Forum, however decided to suspend the ranking which usually lists the countries best placed in terms of productivity and long-term growth. .
With the disruptions caused by the pandemic, including the collection of statistics, some data was insufficient to achieve this ranking, said Saadia Zahidi, executive director at the World Economic Forum, during a video conference.
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We could not give an overview of the evolution in 2020,
" she said.
The authors of this report therefore preferred to focus on a smaller panel of 37 countries, examined in the light of eleven avenues for increasing competitiveness and relaunching growth.
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Countries with advanced digital economies and skills, strong social safety nets and experience in epidemic management have better managed the impact of the pandemic on their economies and citizens
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Countries with advanced digital skills were in the best position to continue to run the economy when some of their citizens switched to working from home, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, Estonia and the United States scoring well in this regard.
Countries with strong economic safety nets, such as Denmark, Finland, Norway, Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland, were well placed to support people who could not work.
Countries with solid financial systems, such as Finland, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, have been able to grant loans quickly to SMEs to avoid a wave of insolvency.
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Among the eleven tracks, the authors of the report evoke investment in research and development, in digital infrastructures, or in training and skills upgrading to fill the gap with the needs of companies which, despite the unemployment, struggle to find the right qualifications.