New York — Armenia is placed 56th in the Forbes’ Best Countries for Business 2014 ranking.
The best country for business this year is Denmark, which ranked No. 1 three straight years between 2008 and 2010. The top10 includes also Hong Kong, New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, Canada, Norway, Singapore and Switzerland.
The U.S. is the world’s undisputed economic superpower with a GDP of $16.7 trillion last year, nearly a quarter of the global total. It is the financial capital of the world and has largely recovered from the Great Recession.
Armenia’s neighbors in the region are placed as follows: Russia is 91st, Azerbaijan is 60th, Georgia is 47th, Turkey is 50th.
“After several years of double-digit economic growth, Armenia faced a severe economic recession with GDP declining more than 14% in 2009, despite large loans from multilateral institutions. Sharp declines in the construction sector and workers’ remittances, particularly from Russia, led the downturn. The economy began to recover in 2010 with 2.1% growth, and has grown even faster in the three years since then,” Forbes writes.
“ Armenia will need to pursue additional economic reforms and to strengthen the rule of law in order to regain economic growth and improve economic competitiveness and employment opportunities, especially given its economic isolation from two of its nearest neighbors, Turkey and Azerbaijan,” Forbes says.
Forbes’ annual ranking of the Best Countries for Business grades countries on 11 different metrics, including property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, freedom (personal, trade and monetary), red tape, investor protection and stock market performance.
