Saudi Arabia ranks 17th in World Competitiveness Ranking 2025

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's flag

Saudi Arabia moved down one notch to 17th place in the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking 2025, issued by the World Competitiveness Center of the International Institute for Management Development (IMD).

The report showed that the Kingdom ranked fourth among the G20 countries.

The Kingdom recorded remarkable progress in one main area of the report, as shown in the following table:

The reported noted that the challenges facing Saudi Arabia during 2025 are as follows:

- Ongoing government endeavors to achieve the targets in the Saudi 2030 vision.

- Continue efforts to promote renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions.

- Carry on enhancing overall competitiveness across multiple pillars.

- Continue efforts to unleash new opportunities for the private sector, local and foreign.

- Invest much more in human capital development across all economic sectors.

The report aims to analyze the ability of countries to create, maintain and develop a supportive and stimulating environment for competitiveness.

It is deemed one of the most comprehensive studies on the competitiveness of countries, comparing 69 countries based on four main pillars: economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure.

Switzerland topped the list for 2025, followed by Singapore, then Hong Kong.

The annual Global Competitiveness Yearbook report, issued by IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, is considered one of the key reference reports for international organizations and institutions. It benchmarks the competitiveness of 69 of the world’s most competitive countries based on four main pillars, 20 sub-pillars, and 335 sub-indicators.