Opinion | Keep your global rankings - Hong Kong will keep the business
Real competitiveness has no relation to lofty standards of academics, and city will continue to thrive without nod from World Economic Forum
Are you planning to set up a business in Geneva, or maybe Helsinki, or even Singapore? No, I thought not; indeed, do you even know anyone who thinks of these places as being the go-to locations for business?
Yet in a recent survey by the World Economic Forum, they are ranked as the top three most globally competitive locations.
It is quite astonishing how governments, including our own, take these global rankings seriously. However for those of us actually involved in business, these surveys are about as helpful as a dubious 30 per cent off the price sticker on goods you never wanted in the first place. Organisations like the WEF seem to specialise in global ranking exercises that are every bit as misleading.
Fortunately, people who run businesses don't need to pay attention, but there is a little world of bureaucrats, academics and so-called business specialists who take all this stuff seriously.
In their world, competitiveness is measured by prissy little lists that focus on "social sustainability", environmental issues, R&D and many other really worthy things.
This all looks just great on paper, but what they don't understand is that competitiveness is simply defined by discovering where businesses actually congregate.