BELGRADE (Serbia), January 14 (SeeNews) – Macedonia ranked highest among countries in Southeastern Europe (SEE) in the global economic freedom chart of The Heritage Foundation, while Moldova ranked lowest .
Macedonia retained its 43rd place in the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, U.S. think-tank The Heritage Foundation said on its website.
The think-tank's index measures economic freedom in 10 specific categories: labour freedom, business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government spending, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights and freedom from corruption.
Albania was the second-best performer among SEE countries, ranking 54th, Bulgaria took the 61th spot and Romania the 62nd. Last year, Albania ranked 58th while Romania and Bulgaria took the 59th and 60th places, respectively.
Montenegro, Slovenia and Croatia ranked 68th, 74th and 87th, respectively, in this year's index.
The eight SEE countries that ranked in the top 87 best performers in terms of economic freedom are part of the “moderately free” segment of the chart.
The worst SEE performer is Moldova, on the 110th place. Together with Serbia, on the 95th place, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, at 101rd, it falls in the "mostly unfree" segment of the chart.
Kosovo was not included in the ranking.
The top three countries in the 19th annual Index of Economic Freedom, released by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, were Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.