Economic strength on the upswing
Photo: Visual/Photos
Israel's economic strength improves drastically
Swiss IMD institute survey: Israel's economic strength 20th among 61 countries; Israel first place in spending on research and development, education but ranks low in customer satisfaction, corporate taxes
The Israeli market is ranked 20th in the national economic strength from among 61 surveyed countries, reveals a new poll conducted by the IMD institute in Switzerland that examines nations' performance based on productive economy, government, businesses and infrastructure. This is a drastic improvement over 2005 when Israel was in 42nd place.
Israel is also ranked in first place in research and development investments as a percentage of its GDP and in public expenditure on education in proportion to GDP. The survey also reveals that in terms of skilled professionals, Israel's rank also improved from tenth to fourth place.
The poll also examined nations' openness to international markets; Israel's place has improved in this area as well, from 13th to sixth place. In terms of receiving Nobel prizes in ratio to population, Israel is ranked seventh place.
In other categories of the survey Israel didn't fare as well. Israel is among other nations on the bottom of the list in percentage of the population in the work force and in corporate tax rate, as measured in percentage of profits. Additionally, the survey revealed that Israel ranked low on the list in terms of customer satisfaction and strikes and sanctions index.
Uriel Lin, director of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce said in response to the survey: "It's an important achievement that proves that the economic policy in the past three years has been correct. Israel's main economic goal should be reaching a GDP per capita that equals the European's of USD 27,000. The social goal is more jobs, more employees, and less dependence on subsidies. The social-economic target is to increase the percentage of the population in the work force and strengthening the low income population."
