MANILA – Think-tank IMD, which ranked the Philippines at 46th in its most recent report on the world’s most competitive economies, “does not really know what it is measuring,” the Department of Finance said Monday.
The IMD ranking “equates surplus with competitiveness” which could result in an “artificially” low score for the Philippines, which is expected to run a deficit due to its “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program, the DOF said in a statement.
“Ironically, infrastructure is intended to improve competitiveness!” the DOF said.
The IMD report covers 63 countries, compared to the 140 in the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Report.
“The greater sin of this series of reports, however, is that methodologically it is backward looking, much like trying to figure out which way to go next by looking at the rear view mirror,” the DOF said.
The IMD ranking uses the previous year’s gross domestic product growth in assigning a score, the DOF said. Over 340 criteria are “at best indicators of past performance and may not be indicative of future performance,” the department said. (ABS-CBN News)
