The London-based Economist's (EIU) research department's 2022 Global Ranking of Successful Economies was published last week.
The ranking was made among the 34 richest countries in the world based on the weighting of several economic and financial aspects: growth, inflation, stock performance and government debt.
The year 2022 will be remembered as the year of the economic crisis worldwide.
Double-digit annual inflation in many countries has reduced household incomes.
Investors and pension funds lost on the stock exchanges as global stock markets fell by about 20%.
Nevertheless, some countries have weathered the crisis better than others.
"Party in the Mediterranean".
The ten most successful economies in the world,
Pleasant surprises
"For the first time in a while, the economic party is taking place in the Mediterranean," said the Economist article.
At the top of the list is
Greece
.
Portugal
and
Spain
, which were caught up in the debt crisis at the beginning of the previous decade, are also
ranked high, in the second and fourth places.
Ireland
came in third place
, mainly thanks to the highest growth among the countries ranked.
Whereas,
Israel
shares fourth place with Spain.
One of the explanations for the high places lies in the activity of the large international companies that come to the countries to take advantage of the tax benefits.
"But these are not the only pleasant surprises," the economic magazine wrote, "despite the political chaos, Israel's economy has recorded success in the past year. On the other hand, despite the political stability, Germany is underperforming, and two Baltic countries, Estonia and Latvia, which were praised in the second decade of The two thousand for quick reforms, went down."
The weekly is now revealing the world economy ranking, after publishing at the beginning of the month the index of the most expensive cities in the world, in which Tel Aviv was awarded the dubious third place.
A profitable deal.
Leviathan gas reservoir (archive), photo: Albatross
In the shadow of the wave of price increases
Looking at the inflation index alone, Israel ranks third among the countries ranked, after Switzerland and Japan.
The relatively moderate inflation was made possible mainly thanks to Israel's gas reserves and long-term contracts signed by the Electric Company for the supply of gas.
These turned out to be extremely profitable in retrospect, although when gas prices were much lower these contracts caused a stir.
One of the claims that came up is that the price charged by the Tamar partnership from the electric company for natural gas is excessive.
One of the significant proceedings conducted on the subject was a class action lawsuit filed against the gas companies for an unprecedented amount of NIS 42 billion, but this was rejected a year and a half ago.
Meanwhile, between December 2021 and October 2022, the inflation recorded in Israel was only 4.9%, in Japan 3.6% and in Switzerland 3.1%.
For comparison, at the same time, double-digit inflation was recorded in European countries: in Germany 10%, in Belgium and Italy - 10.8%, in the Netherlands - 12.5%, Denmark 10.3%, Hungary 20%, Poland 15.9% and more.
The peak of inflation is Turkey, where inflation ran to about 58%.
Low inflation figures.
The stock exchange in Tokyo, photo: IPA
Another figure taken into account is the performance of the local stock market.
In many countries, the stock markets have fallen by double digits since the beginning of the year.
Thus, in Germany and South Korea, the main stock indices fell in the period between December 2021 and November this year by almost 20%, in Switzerland by more than 15%, in Sweden by 21.5%, in Poland by more than 20% and more.
On the other hand, the United Kingdom actually recorded a slight increase during this period, while the stock market in Tel Aviv fell "only" by 7%.
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