Nigeria has lost its former gains on the World Economic Forum (WEF) rankings on countries that have conducive environment for doing business, reducing from 124, in 2015, to 127 in 2016.
The drop in the points means that the West African economic giant is now among the list of countries of the world where investors find it difficult to do business.
According to WEF, Germany is the best country in the world for business competiveness; Canada United Kingdom came second and third.
While in Africa, Mauritius came 45 in the world and the first in Africa, South Africa and Rwanda followed in second and third positions, with 47 and 52 in the world , respectively.
Nigeria in three years running was the 74th in 2013, 124th in 2015 but lost 3 points in 2016 to cling on to 127th, a situation that is said to have reflected on many economic fronts, including drop in foreign direct investment (FDI) and its negative impact on the country’s foreign exchange reserves from $30 billion in 2015 to less than $24 billion by mid October 2016.
A statement by Executive Chairman of WEF, Klaus Schwab, said: “On yearly basis, some 138 countries are subjected to some critical survey using global competitiveness index (GCI), which has seen poorly performing nations review their economic policies.”
According to the statistics from the Swiss-based non-profit rating foundation, Nigeria was only better than 11 countries, most of which are in state of wars, or are facing precarious economic crises.
Some of areas where these countries, including Nigeria, fell below par according to data for the ranking are mostly in health and primary education.
On its macroeconomic environment, Nigeria recoded the least performance among its counterparts.
Also on the financial services, the country was recorded as having its banks in less solid grounds, a factor that has seen the sector reducing availability of credit to critical segments of the economy.
Nigeria came 132nd among the countries whose underdeveloped infrastructure is still holding back their improvement in doing business in the world.
