Malta's placing amongst the top twenty financial services jurisdictions has been confirmed by the World Economic Forum in its annual Global Competitiveness Report for 2015-2016. Malta has maintained its position amongst the best ranked twenty countries in terms of the soundness of its banks and the strength of auditing standards and reporting standards.
The World Economic Forum's report provides an in-depth overview of the com-petitiveness performance of 140 economies, and thus provides a highly compre-hensive assessment of economic and financial performance. It contains a de-tailed summary for each of the economies included in the study, as well as an extensive section of data tables with global rankings covering over 100 indicators.
For the seventh consecutive year Switzerland leads the table, ahead of Singapore and the United States. Germany ranks first amongst European Union Member States.
In terms of general classification, Malta has once again been ranked amongst the top 50 nations in terms of com-petitiveness. It has also maintained its status of an innovation-driven economy.
Moreover, Malta maintained its high scores in vital sectors which are crucial in attracting top quality investment to its shores, ranking amongst the top 25 nations with regards to the quality of education, health and technologi-cal services offered.
In its introduction, the World Economic Forum notes that this Report is being launched seven years after the be-ginning of the financial crisis in 2008, a crisis which is still being felt around the world. "The recovery has been less robust, more uncertain and taken longer than many expected, suggesting subdued economic growth, lower productivity growth and high unemployment.
Looking forward, the Report states that addressing constraints to growth on the supply side could go a long way to restoring growth, as "competitiveness – understood as higher productivity – is a key driver of growth and resil-ience."
The full Report is available on http://goo.gl/TCQs1V .
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