"IMD evaluated the Czech Republic as the 28th most competitive economy in the world in 2017. That’s a slight decrease (27th to 28th) relative to 2016 results and the country thus did not succeed in extending the previous series of improvements of its relative ranking (2014-2016). Nevertheless, the Czech Republic remained the most competitive economy amongst the transition economies and EU new member countries", reports the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (part of CERGE-EI), the local partner of the IMD for the Czech Republic. 

"As far as overall results of the Central and East European countries are concerned, the Czech Republic was followed by Estonia (30) and Lithuania (33). The closest and traditional partners, the Visegrad countries, experienced a decline in their relative position: Poland dropped to 38th place, Slovakia to 51st place, and Hungary to 52nd place.

According to the respondents of the Executive Opinion Survey factors such as skilled workforce, cost competitiveness, and relatively reliable infrastructure were amongst the key attractiveness indicators of the Czech economy, while tax policy and current situation in labor markets were seen as risks to its competitiveness." 

Read the press release attached for general information on the 2017 IMD World Competitiveness report.

The following challenges for the Czech Republic in 2017 were listed: 

• Overheating labor market adapting to wage pressures and possible problems with availability of labor.
• Achieving reasonable policy stability in the midst of turmoil at domestic political stage.
• Monetary policy: smooth transition from the forex intervention regime.
• Prevent possible negative effects of anti tax-avoidance measures and regulation (such as the EET) on entrepreneurship and SME dynamics.
• Finding a constructive attitude to the EU and EU policies.

According to IMD/CERGE-EI, the Czech Republic's strengths (ranking among the top 10 performers worldwide), are categories Exports of goods, Relocation threats of services, Relocation threats of R&D facilities, Trade to GDP ratio, Gini coefficient, Foreign investors, Credit, Secondary school enrollment, and Mobile broadband subscribers.

Among the weaknesses (rank 54 to 58 worldwide) are Employer's social security contribution rate, Subsidies, Ease of doing business, Gross fixed capital formation - real growth, Qualified engineers, Apprenticeships, and Skilled labor. 

IMD lists the factor Net flow of international students among overall top strengths in the Knowledge category and IT & media stock market capitalization or Investment in Telecommunications among top strengths in the Technology category. As for the Future Readiness category, E-participation and Use of big data and analytics are listed among the greatest challenges for the country.  

For more details on improvements and declines between 2016 and 2017, strengths and weaknesses of the Czech economy as well as digital economy indicators, please, see attachments below.

Source of all infomation, data: IMD/The Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (part of CERGE-EI), the local partner of the IMD for the Czech Republic