Trade ranking embarrassment

[mountainannie]

For all those who are following the Honduras thread and might miss this juicy news item be sure to read this

The DR posts a very poor 99th ranking in regulatory environment and physical security components of the business environment category .

As a result of poor performance in most other categories, overall, the Dominican Republic is ranked 81st,

with a score of 3.64 among 121 countries in the Global Enabling Trade 2009 Index published by the World Economic Forum.

This score and ranking compares to
4.96 for Chile (ranked 19th),
4.36 for Costa Rica (ranked 43rd),
4.18 for Uruguay (ranked 51st),
4.06 for Panama (ranked 53rd),
4 for El Salvador (ranked 56th),
3.97 for Guatemala (ranked 58th),
3.81 for Peru (ranked 65th),
3.80 for Honduras (ranked 66th),
3.74 for Mexico (ranked 74th),
3.71 for Nicaragua (ranked 77th) and
3.70 for Jamaica (ranked 79th),
Colombia 3.61 (ranked 84th),
Brazil 3.58 (ranked 87th),
Bolivia 3.55 (ranked 88th),
Argentina 3.46 (ranked 97th).

The Global Enabling Trade 2009 Report is published for the second time and covering 121 economies worldwide. The report presents a resource for dialogue and provides a yardstick of the extent to which economies have in place the necessary attributes for enabling trade and where improvements are most needed. The index has been revised since it was first published in 2008. The main changes concern the explicit inclusion of the export dimension in the index and the addition of an assessment of overall governance conditions to the business environment subindex.
Explore the Global Enabling Trade Report 2009

WOW... leaves the DR beating whom? Haiti and Paraguay? Have to check the report... but this should certainly make some noise along some marble corriders....

if there is any light to read it by

[bob saunders]

Just think when the DR joins the Bolivarian revolutionary group they can do as well as Venezuela - ranked 119 AT 2.8.

[NALs]

Originally Posted by mountainannie

WOW... leaves the DR beating whom? Haiti and Paraguay?

And Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay, Guyana, Venezuela.

I do wonder about the wording in your post. For example, in your post it says:

"As a result of poor performance in most other categories, overall, the Dominican Republic is ranked 81st"

Considering that Argentina's overall score is worst than the DR and yet the report states:




Then we got Brazil, another one that performed worst than the DR and yet it says:






And lets not forget Tanzania with its impressive-for-the-wrong-reason-score and yet, it says:






With all of that in mind, I do wonder why the report explains the low scores of those countries with words such as "mixed performace", "varied performance", or even "a number of pronounced strength and weaknesses"; and yet in your post (I believe you copied that part, but it could be your wording, don't know) the explanation for the DR's score is due to "poor performance in most other categories."

Then there is the wonder of why was one aspect of the report concerning the DR, and consequently the worst aspect, was used as an example to set the negative tone of the news article? Let's have a look of how the DR faired in all sectors:



Yes, what you see is very correct.

The DR ranked 81 overall, 69 in Market Access, 64 in Border Administration, 73 in Transportation and Communications Infrastructure, and the one that seemed to catch the attention of whomever wrote the news piece, 99th in Business Environment.

And last but not least, why did you Mountainannie mentioned Haiti? That country curiously is missing from the entire report!

Aaah, what a beauty when sensationalism meets pessimism!

This is indeed juicy, but not for the reason you assumed!

-NALs

[mountainannie]

Oh Nals, I never figured that Haiti would make a report like that. I was just really distressed to see the DR ranking so low. And you went into the report, and you are the economist,,, so what exactly is this "business environment" index that is bringing the overall ranking down and how does it get fixed?

Or did they just "get it wrong?"

[NALs]

Originally Posted by mountainannie

so what exactly is this "business environment" index that is bringing the overall ranking down and how does it get fixed?

Its mostly tied to corruption and security issues.

However, the DR ranked 6th in the world for ease of hiring foreign labor. Hmm, why am I not shocked? This is perhaps also due to corruption of some sort.

-NALs

[mountainannie]

well to be clear, I did not write the article, I pulled it off of today's DR1 news, so if you have arrows in that bow don't aim that at me.

I was a bit shocked by the report since the DR has been posting such really strong growth figures for the last four or five years which I thought were way surpassing all the other CA countries.

So it was a surprise to see it trailing Nicaragua in anything

[NALs]

Originally Posted by mountainannie

well to be clear, I did not write the article, I pulled it off of today's DR1 news, so if you have arrows in that bow don't aim that at me.

I was a bit shocked by the report since the DR has been posting such really strong growth figures for the last four or five years which I thought were way surpassing all the other CA countries.

So it was a surprise to see it trailing Nicaragua in anything

It just goes to show of the superiority of Dominicans. Had the issues of corruption not been in place, God knows how much faster and more developed the country would had been. But, the country has corruption and despite that the country has developed a large middle class, one of the most dynamic economies in the entire region, and manages to grow at respectable rates; issues of electricity, corruption, etc. not withstanding.

Look at other countries in the region, they have similar (or even less) problems and they don't match the DR in the growth of its economy and middle class.

-NALs

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by NALs

It just goes to show of the superiority of Dominicans. Had the issues of corruption not been in place, God knows how much faster and more developed the country would had been. But, the country has corruption and despite that the country has developed a large middle class, one of the most dynamic economies in the entire region, and manages to grow at respectable rates; issues of electricity, corruption, etc. not withstanding.

Look at other countries in the region, they have similar (or even less) problems and they don't match the DR in the growth of its economy and middle class.

-NALs

^^^ALL^^^ true.

The DR has done well the last half century despite of itself. Certainly it's an incomplete project and there is much structural engineering and plaster work to be done, but it ain't a Third World craphole like much of the rest of the region.

[Yayow]

Thank you Nals for putting things into the proper perspective, once again it indicates how statistics can be manipulated by anyone to show their particular point of view, showing what they want (to illustrate their point), and leaving out the rest.

It is always best when showing or highlighting a report such as this to be fair,
show the whole thing and let your audience come to their own conclusions.

This is not to be critical, just an observation, it is one thing to indicate something as fact, but then show the whole thing, if on the other hand we are just expressing our opinion and want to influence towards our particular point of view, showing one side of a story or equation, in my opinion is perfectly acceptable. As long as you indicate that it is your opinion.

[NALs]

Yayow,

That has been one of my biggest complaint of DR1 or to be more correct, whomever writes the news articles. At times, in areas that should be neutral, the articles appear tainted by someone's opinion. Not just that, the choice of articles sometimes baffles one's mind since supposedly articles are chosen considering the impact of the news on the expat community, but at times the articles seem to be posted just to continue some sort of stereotype or perception, regardless if the news doesn't really relates to expats in the most stretched of ways. I guess the mantra is that people are not smart enough to make up their own minds so, you have to do the thinking for them, along with creating their perception of a place.

Can't blame the heads of DR1 for that. This board gives the individual moderators and contributors a lot of freedom to do as they wish, as long that its not in extreme or uncalled for. But, I do blame whomever writes and chooses the news articles, with having such a low belief in people to not trust them to be able to make up their own minds. Its funny how very few people know who writes those articles since they are not signed and/or the writer is not publicly made known.

And the funny part is when I get attacked in the forum for DR1ers for being part of the extreme minority here that brings the positive side of everything in this otherwise ocean of negativity!

-NALs