Canada ranks 14th In Global Competitiveness for the second consecutive year

Innovation results continue to worsen

OTTAWA, Sept. 4, 2013 /CNW/ - Canada ranks 14^th overall for the second consecutive year in the 2013-14 Global Competitiveness Report, released today by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The Conference Board of Canada is the Canadian Partner Institute for the WEF's Centre for Global Competitiveness and Performance, which produces the annual ranking.

Business Leaders' Perspectives; Canada's Competitiveness and Innovation Doldrums, also released today, is the Conference Board's analysis of the Canadian results, and focuses on the underwhelming performance in areas such as innovation and business sophistication.

"When it comes to business innovation, Canada is seriously underperforming. Canada actually fell four places in factors related to innovation and business sophistication, and that's a real concern," said Michael Bloom, Vice-President, Organizational Effectiveness and Learning. "As a developed country, Canada's economic competitiveness is largely innovation-driven."

Overall, Canada's competitive position has stagnated. A closer look at the results shows that we are getting worse on several factors that do not bode well for our economic and social well-being.

Canada's competitiveness could be enhanced by improvements to its innovation ecosystem through more firm-level spending on R&D, government purchasing and use of Canadian advanced technologies, and improving university-industry collaboration when it comes to R&D.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Canada's ranking slipped from 9^th in 2009 to 14^th in 2012 and 2013.
  
• In overall innovation and business sophistication factors, Canada dropped four places to 25^th in this year's ranking.
• The top two most problematic factors for doing business in Canada are now innovation-related - access to financing, and insufficient capacity to innovate.
  
• Canada has highly-efficient goods, labour and financial markets, but trade barriers are limiting the effectiveness of these advantages.

The Conference Board report also points out Canada's competitive strengths including its primary and higher education systems, efficient labour market, and stable and efficient public institutions; nevertheless Canada is not taking enough advantage of this reality. The country fell three places in the ranking of institutional strengths from 11^th in 2012 to 14^th this year. It also dropped three places in its labour market efficiencies from fourth in 2012 to seventh this year.

Overall, Switzerland was ranked the world's most competitive economy for the fifth consecutive year, followed by Singapore in second and Finland in third place. Germany and the United States each moved up two spots to 4^th and 5^th, respectively, while Japan and the United Kingdom ranked 9^th and 10^th respectively.

Canada slipped ahead of Denmark this year, but could not move up the overall ranking, as Norway advanced four places from 15^th to 11^th this year.  Taiwan and Qatar ranked 12^th and 13^th respectively.

For the third successive year, the Conference Board carried out the WEF's Executive Opinion Survey in Canada to obtain the candid perceptions of business leaders. The Conference Board is also undertaking research through its Centre for Business Innovation, a five-year initiative launched in 2012 to help bring about major improvements in firm-level business innovation in Canada.

View the World Economic Forum's video commentary. View the world map of the Global Competitiveness Index.

Link to publication: http://www.conferenceboard.ca/e-library/abstract.aspx?did=5738

SOURCE: Conference Board of Canada

Brent Dowdall, Media Relations, Tel.: [phone] ext. 448
E-mail: [email protected]