A country’s perception is crucial in enhancing its image and role in international forums and among global key players. These perceptions are created and judged on multiple factors like human development, business, and regulatory environment, market size, and so on, which build and shape a country’s image and act as determining elements of whether a country can attract future business investment, tourism influx, drive the demand for skilled labor, etc. For this purpose, global indices are used as a standard that measures the performance of socio-economic sectors of countries and ranks them accordingly. These scores act as indicators of the social, cultural, economic, environmental, and administrative measurements of countries which give an idea of how well a country is doing, where it stands among other countries and where is it lacking.
Analysts, researchers, and investors use these global indices to understand a specific country’s market and compare different investments and possibilities. These indices act as a report card for a country’s progress and present guidelines and solid frameworks for countries by monitoring specific indicators, making effective policies, and ensuring transparency and accountability of all stakeholders. A multinational company will look into global indices before expanding its business to a specific country. Thus, top ranking on these indices is crucial to attracting foreign investments and businesses. For example, due to complex shipping and payment procedures as indicated by Pakistan’s low ranking on Global Ease of Doing Business index, Amazon, one of the world’s largest online shopping websites does not deliver in the country.
If Pakistan wants to progress in the next 25 years, it must improve its ranking on several indicators. For example, by improving the ranking on the ease of doing business index, multiple businesses and investors will direct their investments toward Pakistan. It will restore their confidence and trust in the market and will create a perception that their investments will be safe here. Similarly, a better score on the global innovation index will result in an economic boom and increasing productivity in the country. An improved ranking on Global Legatum Prosperity Index will drive the socio-economic sectors of Pakistan towards betterment and also boost tourism in the country due to maximum security, and a safer environment. If Pakistan works towards improving its score on the global environmental performance index, better environmental performance can alleviate food and energy shortages. Moreover, a low ranking on the global corruption perception index will reinforce the trust of local and foreign investors and create a positive and trustworthy perception of Pakistan on the world stage. Pakistan must improve its rankings on global indices as it would not only ensure that the country develops in a holistic manner, but it would also improve Pakistan’s image on the world stage.
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