The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Regional performance
Eastern Africa is a close second to Southern Africa in terms of competitiveness but did experience stagnation since the last edition of the report.
Overall, Eastern Africa tops the broader Sub-Saharan Africa average on nine pillars, ties on three, and is the top-ranked sub region on seven. Compared to the Sub-Saharan Africa average, it maintains a minor disadvantage regarding price competitiveness, which is still its highest-scoring pillar, and a larger gap on ICT readiness.
Eastern Africa’s most significant advantages over Southern and Western Africa comes from better ground and port infrastructure. However, it is on natural resources where the sub-region outperforms the global average.
This year, Eastern Africa lost competitiveness on seven pillars. The biggest declines came from cultural resources and business travel, health and hygiene and tourist service infrastructure. However, these losses were offset by strong growth on price competitiveness and enhancements to air and ground infrastructure.
Of the 10 economies ranked in 2017, five decreased in competitiveness and all but one dropped in ranking. For example, Rwanda (107th) experienced the biggest decline, dropping 10 places, due mainly to worsening health conditions (112th to 129th) that were caused primarily by a spike in malaria (118th to 140th).
Burundi (137th) is the lowest-ranked economy in Eastern Africa but had the highest percentage increase in competitiveness. Globally, it ranks last in terms of tourist service infrastructure and, in value terms, lags behind the Eastern Africa average in terms of T&T prioritization (134th). Burundi’s increased competitiveness came from improved T&T enabling conditions and, in particular, price competitiveness, where it moved up seven places to 75th.
The highest-scoring country in the sub region is Mauritius (54th), which is also the highest scorer in the entire Sub-Saharan Africa region. The country is Sub-Saharan Africa’s top scorer when it comes to T&T prioritization—where it ranks 5th globally—due to government focus on the industry including relatively high government expenditure (4th) in the sector.
Regarding T&T GDP size, Eastern Africa is dominated by Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, with Ethiopia (122nd) the largest of the three. The country has the sub region’s largest population but lags behind Eastern Africa’s average on the majority of the 14 TTCI pillars. Most notably, Ethiopia has an underdeveloped overall T&T infrastructure (128th).
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