(JTA) — Israel placed first in several categories in a business competitiveness survey of 60 developed countries.
Israel placed first for entrepreneurship, innovation, cyber-security and business-sector research and development in the survey, put out by the IMD World Competitiveness Center of the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. Israel also took second and third place in several categories relating to technology and government investment in research and education, according to Haaretz.
In the survey’s main ranking, though, measuring overall business competitiveness, Israel dropped five spots from last year’s survey, from 19 to 24. The United States retained its top spot in that ranking, followed by Switzerland, Singapore and Hong Kong.
The factors that dragged Israel down, according to the survey, were its high cost of living, the low quality of corporations’ boards of directors, and the risk that research and development centers in Israel would be transferred abroad.
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