OREANDA-NEWS.  September 10, 2013. Moldova continues to be on one of the last positions among the Eastern European states. The Moldovan economy is outstripped by its neighbours Ukraine and Romania, which ranked 84th and 76th, respectively.

Moldova is surpassed by the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States, such as: Azerbaijan (39th position), Kazakhstan (50th), the Russian Federation (64th), Georgia (72th) and Armenia (79th), which climbed in the top against 2012. Azerbaijan had the best evolution, going up from the 46th to the 39th position.

It is for the first time over the past five years when Moldova’s performances are worse than the year before, after, in 2010-2012, it had improved its positions in the top of the most competitive countries in the world. In 2011, when the index included 139 states, the Moldovan economy was on the 94th position and went up by one position next year. In 2012, Moldova climbed by six positions in the top, reaching the 87th place out of 144 analysed economies.

Moldova got the weakest score of 2.4 points out of 7 and the worst position, the 138th, as regards „innovations”, ranking the last among the central and eastern European states. The development of the financial market and the assets market’s efficiency are other two areas for which Moldova also got bad marks and ranked 105th and 107th, respectively. Moldova got a better score for such areas as technological education (64), macroeconomic environment (77) and infrastructure (88).

The report showed that the biggest problems faced by investors and businessmen face are corruption, political instability and bureaucracy.

Switzerland kept its position of leader on the top of the most competitive states of the world for the fifth year in a row. It is followed by Singapore, Finland, Germany, the United States of America and Sweden.

The WEF study was carried out by interviewing 15.000 heads of companies from 148 countries.