Romania has fallen two placed in the last year in an economic compositeness standing of 60 states, put together by the International Institute for Development Management of Switzerland, the poorest position since it was included back in 2003, money.ro notes. Romania is now in the 55th place, right after Greece, the EU member state that was most hurt by the financial crisis, which, however, moved up from the 58th place last year. At the end of 2011, Romania was number 53. The challenges Romania has this year are the consolidation of economic stability, keeping attractiveness for investment, increasing company – especially SMEs – innovation potential, improving the spending of European money and continuing the restructuring of education and healthcare systems, the report says. The 55fth place in 2013 is one of the poorest for an EU member state. Bulgaria is the only one doing worse than Romania, falling from 54 last year to 57. The United States of America have the most competitive economy in the world. Number two is Switzerland and number three Hong Kong. The following most competitive economies are Sweden, Singapore, Norway, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and Qatar. The last five places, right after Romania, are occupied by Jordan (56), Bulgaria (57), Croatia (58), Argentina (59) and Venezuela (60). The three most competitive economies in Central and Eastern Europe are Lithuania (31), Poland (33) and the Czech Republic (35).
