DOHA - Qatar has been ranked 57th among 179 countries in freedom of trade in the 'Index of Economic Freedom' report released by The Heritage Foundation a Washington-based think-tank and The Wall Street Journal. Qatar moved up nine slots since the release of the last report.
The Heritage Foundation said Qatar was in the top half of the latest rankings with a score of 81.6 points, a big improvement over the 62.2 points it received in the 2008 freedom assessment. Tying with Macedonia and Moldova, Qatar is just a notch lower than Saudi Arabia and ahead of Kuwait (61st), the UAE (63rd) and Bahrain (72nd).
Average tariffs in the world generally dropped from 8.1 percent in 2008 to 6.7 percent in 2009, the rankings showed. The improvement made reveals that many countries are resisting protectionist pressures and moving forward with liberalisation.
The top 10 countries in trade freedom are Hong Kong with 95 points, Singapore, Macao and Libya sharing the second spot with 90 points, Norway (89.2), Namibia (88.4), Canada (88.2), Iceland and Morocco (88) and Croatia and the Kyrgyz Republic (87.6). The US tied with Mauritius in 13th place with 86.8 points.
The 'Index of Economic Freedom' is produced annually by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, appraises economic freedom based on 10 categories, namely trade freedom, labour freedom, fiscal freedom, business freedom, government size, investment freedom, property rights, financial freedom, freedom from corruption and monetary freedom.
Countries whose scores fall between 80 and 100 percent in the index are said to have free economies while mostly free economies are those scoring between 70 and 79.9, moderately free (between 60 and 69.9) and mostly non-free (between 50 and 59.9). Countries with scores from 49.9 and below are rated as economically repressed. They included Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Djibouti, Seychelles, Comoros and North Korea.
© The Peninsula 2008
