Poland sees drastic drop in ranking of economic freedom
22:10
Poland obtained 7.04 points out of 10 possible, which gave it 77th place among 162 countries in the world classified according to the level of Economic Freedom, according to this year's ‘Economic Freedom of the World’ report, made available by the Adam Smith Center (CAS). A year earlier, Poland scored 7.31 points, ranking 59th.
The annual report is prepared by the so-called Economic Freedom Network – a group of independent institutes from over 100 countries cooperating under the leadership of the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, Canada. The Polish member of the network is CAS.
“The decline in our economic freedom was primarily due to a lower quality of money and banking system, and a lower quality of the legal system and protection of private property. For some observers, the recorded decline in economic freedom in the sphere of money may seem exaggerated or even unjustified. Indeed, it is partly due to an imperfect way of measuring one of the index variables. However, even if there was no decline in this area, and our economy obtained the maximum possible score of 10.0, the total index of economic freedom for Poland would drop to the level of 7.29, which would give us 63 position in the world," Andrzej Kondratowicz, the expert of CAS, noted.
Poland was placed in the ranking between Serbia (7.05) and Kyrgyzstan (6.99).
“Comparing Poland with its neighbors is no longer just disturbing – it is alarming. Only Russia (6.74=89th place), Belarus (6.35=114th place) and Ukraine (6.06=131th place) have a lower level of economic freedom than us. All other neighbors are ahead of us: Lithuania is 11th in the world (8.10), Germany is 21st (7.85), the Czech Republic is 25th (7.81), Slovakia 38th (7.63). Romania (23 = 7.83) and Bulgaria (32 = 7.74) are also far ahead of us. Symptomatically, even Hungary ranked above Poland (53rd=7.44) in 2018. The lesson from this for Poland should be completely clear,” Kondratowicz added.
For many years, Hong Kong has held the top position in the ranking. This year it scored 8.94 points. Right behind are Singapore (8.65), New Zealand (8.53) and Switzerland (8.43).
