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Korea made massive strides in improving its business environment over a single year, a survey suggests. The World Economic Forum¡¯s annual Global Competitiveness Survey released Wednesday showed that the country advanced by a whopping 12 places from last year to 17th out of 117 nations. But it still has chronic problems, ranking 77th in labor and management relations, 71st in health of financial institutions, and a tragic 96th in women¡¯s participation in the private sector.
The ranking was the highest Korea had since 1998, beating even France and Hong Kong. Finland was the best place to do business, followed by the U.S., Sweden, Denmark, Taiwan, Singapore, Iceland and Switzerland. Japan came 12th and China 49th.
The country¡¯s climb in the ranking was mostly attributed to remarkable advances in technology innovation and macro-economic environment. It ranked seventh, up two notches, in technology innovation, and 25th, up 10 notches, in macro-economic environment. It also jumped from 14th to sixth in telecommunication technology policies, from 14th to eighth in corporate investment in research and development, and from 24th to 10th in industry-academic cooperation.
But there are more sectors where the country declined. Its ranking slid to 85th from 63rd in foreign currency policies, to 14th from sixth in government finance, to 11th from seventh in national debt, and to 12th from 10th in national savings.
Worse, it continued to figure among the also-rans in political and social areas by ranking 48th in parliamentary efficiency, 61st in tax corruption, and 54th in corruption among prosecutors and lawyers.
The survey found that the government¡¯s injection of public funds since the Asian financial crisis bore little fruit as the country showed scant improvement in ease of loan applications (48th) and health of financial institutions (71st).
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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