[July 07, 2009] Singapore, Hong Kong most open to int'l trade: report Tweet GENEVA, Jul 07, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Singapore and China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region occupy the top two positions in a trade opening index ranking released by the World Economic Forum ( WEF) on Tuesday. Singapore and Hong Kong are followed by Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden in the Enabling Trade Index ranking, which is part of the Global Enabling Trade Report 2009 released by the Geneva-based organization. Other economies in the top 10 of the ranking include Canada, Norway, Finland, Austria and the Netherlands. "The results mirror the openness of Singapore and Hong Kong SAR to international trade and investment as part of their successful economic development strategy," WEF said in a press release. Both economies have put into place highly efficient border administrations and supportive business environments, and they are endowed with well-developed transport and telecommunications infrastructures ensuring rapid transit to final destination, the organization said. The United States, which benefits from a conducive business environment as well as excellent infrastructure, ranks 16th in the list. The U.S. position is weakened by restricted access to markets and concerns about costs to business resulting from crime, violence and terrorism, according to the report. China, which ranks 49th, performs well with respect to transport services and has swift import-export procedures, but trade development is held back by highly restricted access to its markets, the report added. Published for the second time and covering 121 economies worldwide, the annual report presents a resource for dialogue and provides a yardstick of the extent to which economies have in place the necessary attributes for enabling trade and where improvements are most needed, the WEF said. The Enabling Trade Index uses a combination of data from publicly available sources, as well as the results of the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the WEF with its network of partner institutes. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]