Emerging economies: WEF ranks Pakistan better than India

ISLAMABAD: The World Economic Forum (WEF) has ranked Pakistan ahead of India in terms of emerging economies of the world.

The WEF ranked India at 62nd position in the list of emerging economies, while China and Pakistan were ranked at 26th and 47th position respectively. According to the Inclusive Development Index shared by the WEF, Norway continues to be the world’s Number 1 inclusively advanced economy, with Lithuania as the Number 1 of all emerging economies in the world. The Forum announced these rankings during a meet to release the annual index.

The index is measured after assessing several parameters, including standard of living, the sustainability of the environment and the measures taken to protect the coming generations from going into a mounting debt.

At the annual meeting, the Forum encouraged the leaders to shift to inclusive development and growth models. It also stated that using GDP as a measure of growth only leads to inequality and short-term realisation of goals. Last year, India ranked at number 60 amongst the 79 emerging economies, while China was at number 15 and Pakistan at 52.

The Forum’s Inclusive Development Index 2018 measures progress of 103 economies towards this goal. By measuring three individual pillars; growth and development; inclusion; and inter-generational equity it draws the following conclusions:

Norway is the world’s most inclusive advanced economy. In Asia-Pacific, Australia is the highest ranked advanced economy on 9th out of 29 economies. It is followed by New Zealand on 13, Republic of Korea (16) and Japan (24), which is the lowest G7 economy. For the region’s emerging markets, the highest placed is Malaysia on 13 out of 74 economies, followed by Thailand on 17. Elsewhere, Indonesia ranks 36 and Philippines ranks 38.