Interview: New world competitiveness ranking shows China's economy resilient: IMD expert

Arturo Bris, director at IMD's World Competitiveness Center, praised China's resilience and strong 2025 economic performance -- highlighted in IMD's latest rankings -- as driven by infrastructure, investment, and service exports amid global trade challenges.

GENEVA, June 20 (Xinhua) -- China's economy remains resilient and is set to achieve a "formidable" performance this year, said Arturo Bris, director of World Competitiveness Center at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD).

Bris voiced this view in an interview with Xinhua after the publication of the latest edition of the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking report.

The IMD annual report for 2025 released on Tuesday revealed that Switzerland, Singapore and China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region were the top three in the ranking while Canada, Germany, and Luxembourg showed the greatest improvements in the top 20.

"There has been a dynamic reshuffling among the world's top 10 most competitive economies," said Bris.

The government efficiency factor in the world competitiveness report, which assessed 69 economies around the world in 2025, is one of the four major factors, with the rest being infrastructure, economic performance, and business efficiency.

"In the 2025 world competitiveness report, we highlight the importance of competitiveness and to what extent countries need to pursue policies that increase the prosperity of their citizens," Bris explained.

"Because of the current global context, it's becoming more difficult to be competitive in a system that is restricting global trade. The tariff war is the bigger representation of that factor," Bris told Xinhua.

Bris also emphasized that economic prosperity in the face of global socio-political fragmentation can be maintained by effective governance and institutional strength.

"We need regulations and governmental policies that are well structured and set up. This is the most important ingredient in this year's ranking," he said.

The latest IMD report put China in 16th place in the overall ranking. Speaking of China, Bris highlighted the country's economic strength and performance.

"The Chinese economy has been formidable in 2025, and the country moved from sixth to fifth place in the ranking globally in economic performance," he said.

"The country's international investments have been growing significantly. The country ranks 4th in international investment. International trade has also improved a lot, by 16 places to 27th despite the tariffs," he said.

"I think the key driver was the improvement in the world in the growth of commercial services and exports which are not exposed to tariffs," he added.

Bris also emphasized that another important strength of China is the infrastructure factor.

"The country is growing significantly in AI and new technologies, and digital leadership of China is a key differentiator for this year," he further said.

He believes that China "has the economic power to circumvent the difficulties of the current times."

Headquartered in Switzerland, the IMD is an independent university institute with campuses in Lausanne and Singapore, a management development hub in Shenzhen, and an innovation hub in Cape Town.

It has been compiling the yearly world competitiveness ranking report since 1989.■