Malta managed to retain the same spot, ranked 52 among 133 economies, in the global competitiveness rankings according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 issued recently by the World Economic Forum.
Switzerland tops the overall ranking and the United States, with weakening in its financial markets and macroeconomic stability, falling one place to second position. Other EU countries that trail Malta are Lithuania, at 53, which ranked 44 last year, Hungary at 58 from 62, Romania at 64 from 68, Greece at 71 from 67 and Bulgaria, which remained at 76.The Global Competitiveness Index goes into detail and lists the specific advantages and disadvantages for Malta. The disadvantages are burden of government regulation, government deficit and debt and the national savings rate; flexibility of wage determination, hiring and firing practices, pay and productivity and female participation in labour force; domestic market size index and foreign market size index; quality of scientific research institutions, company spending on R&D, University-industry collaboration in R&D and availability of scientists and engineers amongst others.
The advantages, however, surpass by far the disadvantages and include property rights, intellectual property protection, Judicial independence; quality of port and air transport infrastructure; health and education; financial market sophistication and soundness of banks; and the availability of latest technologies and firm-level technology absorption.