The World Economic Forum is an International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum unites the leading politicians, businessmen and other leaders of society to formalize the global, regional, and industrial agenda. The organization holds a number of regional and global meetings and annual sessions every year. In addition to meetings, the organization prepares a number of research reports and engage its members in Sector-specific Initiatives.

The organization performs the function of “think tank”, which publishes a wide range of reports. In particular, the "Strategic Thinking Team" ensures development of relevant reports on Competitiveness, Global Risks.

Analyzing Competitiveness, the Group prepares a number of annual economic reports (first published date given): Global Competitiveness Report (1979); Global Information Technology Report (2001); Global Gender Discrimination Report; Global Risks Report (2006); Global Travel and Tourism Report (2007); Financial Development Report (2008); and Global Trade Report (2008).

What is Global Competitiveness Report?

• Global Competitiveness Report is published by the World Economic Forum. It was first published in 1979 and the scope of the Report is expanding every year. This Competitiveness Index is the most fundamental and influential strategy tool created by governments, scientists, and business leaders to compare the strengths and weaknesses of the National Economy, to find out how to improve prosperity in the country. This Report is a collection of factors that determine the productivity level of a country, economic policy, and data showing the state of these organizations, and agencies.

Data used in the Report

• The Report uses public statistics (World Bank, IMF, etc.) and the results of surveys conducted by the World Economic Forum. These surveys are conducted annually with the support of partner organizations (research institutions, business centers).

What does the Report cover?

• Global Competitiveness Report analyzes the factors that play an important role in creating favorable business conditions in the country, which is very important in terms of determining the level of Competitiveness and Production of the country.

• The Report sets out some priorities to facilitate the implementation of political reforms, taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of the country.

• The Report analyzes how their resources and competences are managed as a whole to improve the well-being of countries and notes the importance of Labour Productivity to ensure sustainability of population and wage growth.

The importance of Global Competitiveness Index

Providing economic development in the future makes creative approaches necessary. The World Economic Forum aims at guiding countries, inform its members about future solutions and clarify the problems encountered by regulators. The annual report, which presents the results of the Global Competition Index, provides fairly accurate information for leaders from the public and private sectors to better understand the key aspects of Growth. This index is widely used among countries to compare their Competitiveness with those of the world countries. This index is of great interest with data such as whether a country should rise in ranking, fall or continue to remain in its ranks. The Report sets out rankings for nearly 140 countries.

Benefit of Global Competitiveness Index. The Index focuses the attention of the governments of the country on the long-term factors of Unemployment, Growth, Income Level and Well-being and allows to monitor and compare the results of reforms in separate countries. The main directions of the benefit of the Index are:

• Points are more important than the ranking. Although the ranking is an important indicator, the points on the indicators are mainly informative. Thus, if there are more points on the indicators, the ranking may drop (due to the overall improvement of the indicators of other countries). From this point of view, the dynamics of points creates a fuller picture: is the Economy developing in general? Are KPIs on indicators, columns and sub-indices improving?
• Systematic and structural reforms are important. Although KPIs are important on separate indicators, progress based on all indicators is more important (columns, sub-indices).
• Identifying priorities. Since the resources of the government and the private sector are limited, there is a need to prioritize reforms. Competitiveness Index provides an important tool for detecting the most serious vulnerabilities and identifying priorities. Which columns have a lag in points? Which columns fall behind the others?
• Understanding Competitive Drivers. The Index allows countries to more deeply understand the factors that affect their indices, identify development drivers and develop appropriate projects and programs for them.
• Support for private sector development. The Index helps to detect vulnerabilities in the private sector and, based on this, identify areas where government intervention is essential.
• Strengthening Public-Private Cooperation. The Index aims at determining the agenda of the discussion between the public and private sectors and mobilizes different parties around a single goal and provides structured dialogue. Such dialogue requires that the government and the private sector focus on long-term objectives and not on current goals.
• Ensuring coordination. A number of areas require coordinated action and information exchange between government agencies and private sector. In this regard, the Index provides for faster results by ensuring coordination between different agencies.
• Institutional Mechanisms. The Index can stipulate the creation of permanent Institutional Mechanisms for the determination, coordination and execution of priorities. For example: The establishment of the Commission on Business Environment and International Ratings and the Secretariat of the Commission in Azerbaijan can be attributed to such institutional mechanisms.