Determining Iran's Competitive Priorities Based on the Global Competitiveness Index

National competitiveness as an important economic goal in the context of globalization has been considered by many policymakers around the world. In the Iran, national competitiveness has been considered by officials and the government of men, so that achieving Iran's top economic, scientific, and technological position among the countries, especially among the countries of Southwest Asia, is one of the most important goals in the 20-Year Vision Document. Therefore, providing a framework for identifying and prioritizing factors that help improve Iran's competitiveness can be effective in achieving this goal.

Methodolog:

This study intends to provide a new framework based on the Global Competitiveness Index to prioritize the competitiveness pillars to increase the national competitiveness of Iran and determine the benchmark countries. This framework is implemented in three stages. The countries of the world are first clustered on the basis of competitive pillars using the fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm to distinguish the countries that are more similar in terms of national competitiveness. The competitiveness pillars in each cluster are then weighted using the CCSD weighting method. The weights obtained indicate the importance and priority of competitive factors. Finally, the WASPAS method is used to rank the countries in each cluster. These rankings are used to identify benchmark countries in each cluster.

Based on the results of this study, the countries of the world were first classified into three clusters. Clusters 1, 2 and 3 represent the developing, least developed, and the developed countries, respectively. After clustering the countries, competitive pillars were weighed using the CCSD weighting method. Accordingly, the labor market in cluster 1, the product market in cluster 2, and macroeconomic stability in cluster 3 had the highest weights. The higher the weight of a pillar, the higher its importance and priority in terms of competitiveness. For the Iran, labor market, macroeconomic stability and infrastructures were the most important competitiveness factors, respectively. Finally, the countries of each cluster were ranked using the WASPAS method. Latvia, Thailand, and Cyprus in cluster 1, Namibia, Kenya, and Macedonia in cluster 2, and Singapore, United States and Switzerland were top three ranked countries. Iran, with a rank of 58, is among the last countries in cluster 1 in this ranking. Latvia, Thailand, and Cyprus, which have the highest rankings in Cluster 1, can be used as benchmark countries for Iran.

 National competitiveness has become the main focus of policymakers and governments. Therefore, in this study, a framework based on national competitiveness index was presented to determine the national competitiveness priorities as well as benchmark countries for Iran. In this framework, the countries of the world were first clustered based on competitive pillars using fuzzy c-means algorithm. Competitive columns were then weighed in each cluster using CCSD method. Finally, the countries of each cluster were ranked using the WASPAS method. Based on the proposed framework, competitive factors and priorities as well as benchmark countries for the Iran were determined.