Brazil holds penultimate on competitiveness ranking of 18 countries

Brazil holds penultimate in a competitiveness ranking of 18 countries, followed only by Argentina. The result was released today (Jan. 19) in a survey conducted by the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry (CNI). The reference year of the survey was 2016.

To measure competitiveness, nine factors were taken into account. They were: infrastructure and logistics, availability and cost of labor and capital, macroeconomic environment, weight of taxes and education.

According to CNI, the countries included in the survey were chosen based on their economic and social characteristics, and on their participation in the international market. This is the fifth edition of the report, first published in 2010.

By item, Brazil ranked last on availability and cost of capital, with the highest short-term real interest rates and highest spread of interest rate (the difference between the rates paid by banks to collect resources and the charges paid by consumers). The country ranked penultimate in business environment and macroeconomic environment.

According to the CNI, the factors affecting the poor performance in macroeconomic environment were inflation, gross debt, high interest burden, and low investment rate. In the business environment item, the country is pulled down by the poor performance of some subfactors: bureaucracy, labor relations, government efficiency, and legal security.

Education

Brazil ranked best on the education item, reaching the ninth place of the 15 countries with information available on the item. The positive result in education was produced by the country's good performance in spending on education, subfactor on which Brazil ranked fourth. However, the CNI pointed out that the country performed poorly on other items. In the item of quality of basic education, for example, the country ranked twelfth among the 14 countries surveyed.

Canada ranked first in the overall survey, followed by South Korea, Australia, China, Spain and Chile. Among the data surveyed, Canada has not reached first only  in availability, cost of labor, and macroeconomic environment.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta