The 2014 World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), shows Australia has dropped another spot to 17. The 2014 ranking represents a drop in Australia's competitiveness of 12 places in five years.

The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook compares and ranks 60 countries on business competitiveness criteria and is the world's most renowned and comprehensive annual report on the competitiveness of nations.

In releasing the Australian results, CEDA Chief Executive, Professor the Hon. Stephen Martin said improvements in the economies of the UK and Ireland, who are still recovering from the GFC, have pushed Australia further out in the rankings in the last two years.

"Discussion about Australia's economic future has generally been about how we compete with low cost emerging economies, but these results clearly show the threat to our economy and international competitiveness is also coming from mature or advanced economies," he said.

The rankings are part of Switzerland based IMD's 2014 World Competitiveness Yearbook, compiled from statistical data and a survey of senior business people in each country gathered in March each year. CEDA is the Australian partner for the yearbook.

Read the 2014 WCY Australian summary - Read about Australia's competitiveness trends overall, challenges in 2014 and see how Australia ranks on economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure.

Continue the conversation - A CEDA event to further discuss the results will be held in Brisbane on June 5. The keynote speaker will be Maurice Newman AC, Chairman, Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council.

Read CEDA media release - New world rankings show emerging economies not the only threat to Australia's global competitiveness

Read opinion piece - Why we need to become a clever country by CEDA Chief Executive, Professor the Hon. Stephen Martin.

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