14 September, 2005
Botswana once again ranked as Africa’s leader in Economic Freedom

The 2005 Economic Freedom of the World report and index was released last week, once more ranking Botswana No.1 in Africa. It tied with Japan and Spain in the overall global ranking of 127 nations.

The annual report is produced by the Fraser Institute of Canada in conjunction with the Cato Institute of the United States and sixty other leading research institutes from across the globe including (from Africa) the:

• Africa Research Centre for public Policy and Market Process (Kenya)
• Free Market foundation of Southern Africa (South Africa)
• Institute of Public Analysis (Nigeria)
• Institute of Economic Affairs (Ghana), And
• Bureau d’Analyse d’Ingenierie et de Logiciels (Cote D’Ivoire)

According to the report’s Executive Summary, the global index measures the degree to which the policies and institution of countries are supportive of economic freedom; the cornerstones of economic freedom being understood as: personal choice voluntary exchange, freedom to complete, and security of privately owned property.

As with last year’s report, a total of 38 components and sub-components are used to construct a summary index and to measure the degree of economic freedom in five areas: (1) size of government; (2) legal structure and sound money; (3) access to sound money; (4) international exchange; and (5) regulation.

According to this year's report, Hong Kong retains the highest rating overall rating for economic freedom, 8.7 of 10, followed by Singapore at 8.2. Botswana's overall rating this year was 7.2 ahead of Mauritius, 7.0, South Africa, 6.9, and Namibia, 6.8, in the Africa rankings.

While most Africa states did poorly in the survey when, the continents top performers also did relatively well when, fro example, benchmarked to the G8 economies;

USA (8.2), UK(8.1),Canada(8.0),Germany (7.5),Botswana(7.2),Japan(7.2), Mauritius(7.0),South Africa(6.9), France (6.9),Namibia (6.8), Italy(6.6) Russia(5.1)

The report's findings are consistent with this year's previously released findings of the World Economic Forum and the Freedom House Survey, which for the past five years has also ranked Botswana as number one in Africa, and a global leader in terms of economic freedom and competitiveness.