Augusto Lopez-Claros, chief economist of the World Economic Forum (WEF), said Wednesday that it was a combination of many factors that, taken together, created extremely healthy business environments in the Nordic countries.

According to the Global Competitiveness Report 2005-2006 released Wednesday by the WEF, the Nordic countries continue to hold prominent positions in the rankings among the top 10 most competitive economies this year, with Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Norway all in privileged places.

"First, unlike some of the larger industrial countries, macroeconomic management has been quite admirable; the authorities in all of these countries are strongly committed to sound public finances," Lopez-Claros, who is also director of the organization's Global Competitiveness Program, said when launching the report.

He said the authorities of the Nordic countries are running budget surpluses to be able to meet pension and other obligations associated with rapidly ageing populations.

Successive governments have managed to create a climate of transparency and honesty in public management that greatly contributes to business confidence, according to the expert.

"Integrity and efficiency in the use of public resources means there is money for investing in education, in public health, in state-of-the-art infrastructure, all of which contributes to boost productivity. Highly trained labor forces, in turn, adopt new technologies with enthusiasm or, as happens often in the Nordics, are themselves in the forefront of technological innovations," said Lopez-Claros.

According to him, in many ways the Nordics have entered virtuous circles where various factors reinforce each other to make them among the most competitive economies in the world, with world class institutions and some of the highest levels of per capita income in the world.

Source: Xinhua