September 28 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria has taken the lead among the Southeast European (SEE) countries in the latest edition of the Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, while Bosnia remained the region's worst performer for the second consecutive year.
Montenegro, Macedonia and Romania are the SEE countries assessed as less competitive than they were a year earlier, while Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia have improved their rankings, according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017.
Bulgaria climbed four positions from last year's edition to 50th spot with a score of 4.44, taking over from Romania which last year topped the list of SEE entrants by ranking 53rd. Romania plummeted to 62nd place in twelve months time, with a score of 4.30 in the latest edition of the report.
Bosnia, which debuted on the global competitiveness report in 111th place last year, climbed to 107th place in the 2016-2017 review with a score of 3.8.
Slovenia moved up three spots to 56th position with a score of 4.39, while Macedonia dropped 8 places to 68th spot with a score of 4.23.
Croatia ranked 74th, moving up 3 places and scoring 4.15, while Albania jumped ahead of Montenegro to 80th position, from 93rd last year, with a score of 4.06.
Montenegro posted the sharpest decline, falling 12 places to 82nd spot among a total of 138 countries, with a score of 4.05.
Serbia gained four spots from last year to 90th with a score of 3.97. This is Serbia's best score so far, after the country fell to 101st position in the 2013-14 report and remained in 94th place in the following two editions.
The Global Competitiveness Report assesses the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens, depending on how productively a country uses available resources. It uses a global competitiveness index which measures factors such as macroeconomic stability, infrastructure, labour market efficiency, market size, business and financial market sophistication and technological readiness.
Switzerland came in first in the Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017, followed by Singapore and the United States, with all three countries remaining in the same positions they held last year.