South Africa rise seven places from 56 to 49 of 140 countries in the 2015/16 World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Index.

Speaking about South Africa’s significantly improved performance in the Global Competitiveness Index, Brand South Africa’s CEO Kingsley Makhubela says: “Building a country’s competitiveness is a collective endevour involving the collaboration of government, business and civil society.  Ultimately it involves all South Africans to coalesce around this national objective.

“The results of the 2015/16 Global Competitiveness Index shows that South Africa has made significant improvements towards ensuring we are a globally competitive destination.  The report resonates with our own assessment that we must work towards strengthening, amongst others, the education and health sectors to ensure our sustained competitiveness. The National Development Plan outlines the steps we need to take to achieve this.

“We thank all South Africans for your contribution to building South Africa’s competitiveness and look forward to further improvements in the next year,” adds Makhubela.

South Africa’s biggest improvements come in the areas of: infrastructure (up eight places), health and primary education (up six places), labour market efficiency (up six places), technological readiness (up 16 places), and innovation (upf ive places).

South Africa has also improved in the areas of: macro-economic environment (up four places), higher education and training (up three places), and business sophistication (up two two places).

South Africa has dropped in the area of institutions (down two places), goods market efficiency (down six places), financial market development (down five places) and market size (down four places).