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Mitchell O’Connor welcomes improvement in Ireland’s competitiveness performance

Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor today welcomed the findings of the IMD’s 2016 Global Competitiveness yearbook which shows that Ireland’s competitiveness ranking has moved up nine places up to 7th this year. This is a significant improvement on 2011 when Ireland was ranked 24th and is Ireland 's best ranking since 2000. Ireland is now ranked by the IMD as the most competitive economy in the euro area. 

Ireland’s performance has improved across all four key dimensions assessed by IMD and can be summarised as follows:

  1. ​Economic Performance-6th position, improvement up 6 places on 2015 
  2. ​Government Efficiency-13th position, improvement up 2 places on 2015 
  3. ​Business Efficiency-2nd position, improvement up 11 places on 2015 
  4. ​Infrastructure-23rd position, improvement up 1 place on 2015

Ireland ranks first in terms of GDP growth, GDP per capita, export growth investment incentives and direct investment flows abroad. Ireland is regarded as the second most competitive country in the world for business efficiency. Particular strengths include the flexibility and adaptability of our people (1st), the productivity level of our workforce (3rd) and the availability of talent. As recognised by the IMD, many of Ireland’s traditional assets such as our competitive taxation system, highly skilled workforce, and pro-enterprise business environment have been strengthened. Our public finances have been significantly repaired and economic growth is robust. The IMD Report follows recent CSO releases in relation to the labour market and job announcements which show economic and employment growth remains strong.

The Minister said: 

The IMD Report underlines the importance of maintaining international competitiveness in the context of a resurgent Irish economy. It is also a timely reminder about the need to continuously implement policies to further improve our performance further to ensure job creation across all regions.

Read the press release here.