Kathmandu Nepal, September 20, 2011: Nepal Scores 129 position out of the 141 countries this year with a score of 5.50 in the Economic Freedom of the World Report listing Nepal in the least developed countries.The report was made public here by the Samriddhi, The Prosperity Foundation.
The report states Nepal continues to degrade in all the five measured areas of economic freedom which include: size of government; access to sound money; freedom to trade internationally; and Regulation of Credit, Labour, and Business and legal structure and security of property rights. Though its ranking and scores in some of the areas have improved, Nepal’s overall performance in terms of economic freedom continues to be low.
Economic freedom is measured in five different areas:
- Size of government,
- Legal structure and security of property rights,
- Access to sound money,
- Freedom to trade internationally,
- Regulation of credit, labor, and business.
The Report also shows that countries with more economic freedom have substantially higher per-capita incomes, higher growth rates. Life expectancy is about 20 years longer in freer countries. People living in countries with more economic freedom report more life satisfaction. With fewer regulations, taxes, and tariffs, economic freedom reduces the degree of corruption.
Similarly, Hong Kong scores 9.01 out of 10, followed by Singapore (8.68), New Zealand (8.20), Switzerland (8.03), Australia (7.98), Canada (7.81), Chile (7.77), the United Kingdom (7.71), Mauritius (7.67), and the United States (7.60).
This year
The annual Economic Freedom of the World report is produced by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank, in cooperation with independent institutes in 80 nations and territories, including Samriddhi, The Prosperity Foundation from Nepal.