On October 8 last, the Swiss-based World Economic Forum (WEF) [1] released the edition 2008-2009 of its Global Competitiveness Report, showing that Montenegrin economy — ranked 65 out of 134, far ahead of Serbia (85th), Macedonia (89th), Bosnia and Herzegovina (107th) and Albania (108th) — was already more competitive than three European Union (EU) Member States, i.e. Greece (67th), Romania (68th) and Bulgaria (76th).

Today, this Monday October 27, 2008, the WEF issued its Lisbon Review 2008, which gauges every two years progress of EU and some non-EU countries towards the Lisbon Strategy of Economic and Structural Reforms [2], a 10-year timeline to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.”

The WEF’s Lisbon Review Index (LRI) is built upon an average of eight “dimensions”: creating an information society for all, developing a European area for innovation and R&D, liberalisation (completing the single market; state aid and competition policy), building network industries, creating efficient and integrated financial services, improving the enterprise environment, increasing social inclusion, and enhancing sustainable development. Countries are given scores in each of these eight sub-indices, and a weighted average of these basic “dimensions” is taken to produce the final index. The survey is designed to capture a broad range of factors affecting country overall performance.

LRI rankings 2008

In this year Lisbon Review, among 16 non-EU European and Central Asian countries, Montenegro is ranked second with a score of 3.96 — just behind Croatia (4.10) — doing better in many of the different “dimensions”, and in the overall ranking, than Romania (3.84), Poland (3.76) and Bulgaria (3.68), three EU Member States entered into EU in 2007, 2004 and 2007, respectively. Montenegro received the highest score of 4.88 in the category “Financial Services”, 4.08 in “Sustainable Development”, and the second best score of 4.22 in “Liberalisation”.

According to the Lisbon Review 2008, Montenegro leaves its neighbouring countries far behind, Macedonia at n° 9, Serbia at n° 11, Albania at n° 15 and Bosnia and Herzegovina at n° 16.

Following is the video record of an interview given by Dr. Jennifer Blanke, WEF’s Senior Economist and co-author of the Lisbon Review 2008, in Geneva, Switzerland, October 22:

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