BrazilBCG names Croatia 40th country for sharing prosperity with its citizens
Croatia has been named the globe’s 40th best country in converting economic prosperity into citizen wellbeing. The country ranks above countries such as Uruguay and Greece in The Boston Consulting Group’s latest study on sustainable economic development.
Since 2012, the global management consulting firm conducts research into how well countries are translating their economic progress into other factors that are key for a country’s prosperity, including access to health and education, infrastructure and governance, but also more cultural aspects such as civil society and equality as well as environment. The model by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), named ‘Sustainable Economic Development Assessment’ (SEDA), aims at helping policy makers understand a country's relative prosperity of citizens and the possibilities available to improve the distribution of income and happiness.
Top of the SEDA rankings is Norway, which managed to outperform every other country in almost every other criterion, specifically standing out in the investment category. Switzerland is placed second, followed by Iceland and Luxembourg. Europe boasts a strong foothold in the top 10, with the rest of Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Austria holding the other top spots, with the exception of Singapore which appears at seventh on the list.
Croatia, a country with a population of 4.2 million inhabitants, ranks 40th this year. The country received its highest rating in the equality category, while income is regarded as the largest improvement area. The finding comes months after another study, by real estate consultancy Knight Frank, highlighted that Croatia has, in relative terms, one of the largest groups of millionaires. Around 12,000 people have more than $1 million at their disposal, while the country has around 120 super rich millionaires.
Across the different dimensions, Croatia received scores of 84.0 for economic stability, 80.9 for healthcare, 74.0 for civil society, 72.6 for infrastructure and 65.8 for education. With an overall score of 64.5 points however, Croatia ranks lower than several other Central Eastern European countries such as Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia and Hungary.
Meanwhile in Croatia’s professional services industry, Infobip, the largest IT firm in the country, was earlier this summer called in by Facebook to help the social media giant with growing the revenue of its WhatsApp subsidiary.
