Spain fell nine places compared to last year to 42nd in terms of its economic competitiveness in the list compiled by the World Economic Forum in its latest report on Global Economic Competitiveness presented today in Pekin. Switzerland, Sweden and Singapore occupy the first three places.

The study which has been carried out by a group of economists led by Xavier Sala-i-Martín analyzes information on 139 economies throughout the world and takes into account macroeconomic factors such as the size of markets, economic policies, legislation, infrastructure and the labour market.

The World Economic Forum has placed Spain 42nd in this year’s ranking immediately behind Puerto Rico and just one place ahead of Barbados.

Once again Spain occupies one of the lowest positions in the EU just above Italy which is placed 48th but far behind countries like Germany (5th), Finland (7th), Holland (8th), Denmark (9th), the United Kingdom (12th) or France (15th).

According to the report Spain’s fall of nine places is attributable to a negative growth in the labour and financial markets as well as the level of sophistication of the way business is carried out in Spain.

Nevertheless Spain occupied 13th position for the second year in a row in terms of being a major market for national companies. It is also valued positively in terms of its technology (30th) high level infrastructure (14th) and training and education (31st).

However, the report criticised once again the inflexibility of the labour market in Spain placing it near the bottom of its ranking at 130th. According to the World Economic Forum it discourages the creation of new jobs, something which is especially worrying given Spain’s high level of unemployment.