The Africa Competitiveness Report 2009 was recently released, assessing the economic competitiveness of African states. The conclusions in the report draw from research from the World Economic Forum, the African Development Bank and the World Bank.<\/p>\n
According to the report African businesses can become far more competitive, but African governments and their international partners will need to improve access to finance, resist pressure to erect trade barriers, upgrade infrastructure, improve healthcare and educational systems, and strengthen institutions.<\/p>\n
“Limited access to financial services remains a major obstacle for African enterprises, but underdeveloped infrastructure, limited healthcare and educational services, and poor institutional frameworks also make African countries less competitive in the global marketplace,” the report states.<\/p>\n
South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n South Africa was ranked second in this year’s Africa Competitiveness Report with a competitiveness score of 4.4, 0.2 points behind Tunisia with a score of 4.6. Botswana, Mauritius and Morocco complete the top 5. <\/p>\n South Africa’s score places it 45 th in the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) 2008-2009. This is down from number 44 in the 2007 – 2008 GCI and significantly lower than the 35 th place it held in the 2006 – 2007 GCI.<\/p>\n SA’s Technological Readiness<\/strong><\/p>\n South Africa’s Technological Readiness was one of the areas where the country scored slightly lower than its overall rank, with a global technology readiness rank of 49. South Africa was the leading country in Africa when it came to Technological Readiness, followed by Tunisia and then Botswana.<\/p>\n South Africa scored well in most aspects of Technological Readiness, but the overall score was dragged down by very poor scores for Internet usage and the number of broadband Internet subscribers.<\/p>\n South Africa ranked well globally on the Availability of latest technologies (37), Firm-level technology absorption (32), Laws relating to ICT (34) and FDI and technology transfer (38). It also did fairly well in terms of Mobile telephone subscribers (48), but started to lag badly behind the rest of the world in terms of Personal computers (68).<\/p>\n The worst two areas in terms of South Africa’s Technological Readiness were the number of Internet users (95) and the country’s Broadband internet subscribers (77). <\/p>\n These figures confirm what many telecoms experts have been saying for years: South Africa needs an urgent intervention in terms of broadband access and Internet connectivity.<\/p>\n Government focus on broadband needed<\/strong><\/p>\n Broadband connectivity and access to online services have become one of the cornerstones of any globally competitive economy, and unless South Africa addresses this problem it is likely to continue sliding down the globally competitiveness rankings.<\/p>\n