SHARJAH, 8 January 2005 — The Heritage Foundation, an American right-wing think-tank, and the Wall Street Journal have given Saudi Arabia the seventh ranking as the “most free” economy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
The annual “global economic freedom” rating names Bahrain as the first and the UAE and Kuwait the third and fourth-ranks in the listing. Saudi Arabia was ranked seventh.
The countries in the MENA region were ranked in the following order: Bahrain, Israel, the UAE, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Syria, Iran and Libya.
There were no figures available for Iraq or Sudan. The Middle East and North Africa was the only region in the world to experience a net decline in economic freedom in 2004, according to the ratings.
The 2005 Index of Economic Freedom measures 161 countries against a list of 50 independent variables divided into 10 broad factors of economic freedom.
Globally, Bahrain was ranked 20th, the UAE 48th and Kuwait 54th.
The 10 “most free” countries were (ranked from top): Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Estonia, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Denmark, Iceland, and Australia. The “least free” were: Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Iran, Cuba, Laos, Turkmenistan, Zimbabwe, Libya, Myanmar and North Korea.
The 2004 rating was the 11th edition of the “index of economic freedom,” which the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street as a tool for policymakers and investors. It seeks to set up a systematic, empirical measurement of economic freedom in countries throughout the world. Since the inaugural 1995 edition, have been used to study and grade various countries for the annual publication of the Index of Economic Freedom.
“The index, however, is more than just a dataset based on empirical study; it is a careful theoretical analysis of the factors that most influence the institutional setting of economic growth,” says the Heritate Foundation.. “Moreover, although there are many theories about the origins and causes of economic development, the findings of this study are straightforward: The countries with the most economic freedom also have higher rates of long-term economic growth and are more prosperous than are those with less economic freedom.”
Among the variables in the index study are trade policy, fiscal burden of government, government intervention in the economy, monetary policy, capital flows and foreign investment, banking and finance, wages and prices, property rights, regulation, and informal market activity.