The Global Competitiveness Index is a ranking of economic competitiveness, based on economic data and surveys of large businesses in 140 countries.

The Index shows New Zealand dropping from 16th place globally in 2017 to 18th place in 2018.

This year the Index shows New Zealand gaining 1st place for macroeconomic stability, strength of institutions, lack of corruption and time to start a business, and ranking highly for indicators including social capital, efficiency of legal framework, intellectual property protection and soundness of banks.

But New Zealand’s competitiveness is reduced by indicators including inadequate infrastructure, burden of regulation, quality of research institutions, capital availability and market capitalisation.

BusinessNZ Chief Executive Kirk Hope said the 2018 Index highlighted many of the strengths of the New Zealand economy and business environment, but also underlined the requirement for more infrastructure investment and less unnecessary regulation to maintain high competitiveness rankings.

The top ten countries in the Global Competitiveness Index this year are US, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Netherlands, Hong Kong, UK, Sweden and Denmark, while Australia ranks 14th.The complete results of the 2018 Global Competitiveness Index are on http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2018/