Location benchmark of the business environment and economic development of emerging and developed countries to become knowledge economies
Global Arena Comparative Analysis - United Arab Emirates Annual Investment Meeting
1. Abstract
The UAE hosted AIM (Annual Investment Meeting) targets rapidly transforming economies, emerging countries and industries for which high growth is projected. Working with PwC and Credit Suisse, Global Arena provided a comparative analysis for a mix of developed and emerging market economies. Then, based on the projected transition (in all locations) to knowledge-based economies driven by human capital, the model was used to identify locations that appear to be ahead of the curve in the talent environment area. Singapore, Switzerland and Hong Kong ranked best when all decision factors were equally weighted. When the factors involving talent were given increased weight, South Korea ranked highest while Poland, Turkey and Romania showed dramatic improvement.
2. Sponsors
PwC and CLS Communications Language Services sponsored the AIM Comparative Analysis.
3. Objective
PwC’s 14th Annual Global CEO survey (“Globalization re-imagined”) indicates that global companies are placing increased emphasis in the areas of talent and innovation. Global Arena technology was used to compare major developed economies with high-growth economies in emerging markets. Global Arena’s analytic methodology makes it possible to compare locations against varied criteria; for the AIM conference, we wanted to identify locations that were ‘ahead of the curve’ in the transition to a knowledge-based economy.
4. Scope
Locations:
Azerbaijan, Germany, Georgia, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Malaysia, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom.
Data Series:
Economic Environment
- Ease of Doing Business
- Gateway Capabilities
- Environmental Performance
Talent Environment
- Innovation Capabilities
- Labour Productivity
- Labour Availability
Governance Factors
- PwC Corporate Tax Rate
- Social Political Stability
- Labour Market Flexibility
4. Results
Initial Case Study settings:
All decision factors are equally weighted.
The results:
When all factors are equally weighted, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and Germany are ranked highest. This result is as expected. However, when high weights are assigned to the factors involving talent (adjust all the talent sliders to the far right, all the other sliders to the far left), South Korea is top ranked. Moreover, under these conditions, there is dramatic improvement in the rankings for Poland, Turkey and Romania. These results indicate that South Korea, Poland, Turkey and Romania are ahead of the curve amongst their peers preparing for a transition to a knowledge-based economy.
For review:
If all the economic environment factors are heavily weighted, the developed economies will be highly ranked. Note as well, that emerging market economies do not do well in the area of environmental performance.
5. Appendix