Fraser Institute Rates Georgia Among Top Ten Freest Economies

Georgia ranks seventh among the world’s 162 countries and territories in the annual Economic Freedom of the World report, released on September 25 by the Fraser Institute, a public policy think tank based in Vancouver, Canada.

The report measures the degree of economic freedom of nations for 2016 – the latest year for which the data was available – in five broad areas: size of government; legal system and property rights; sound money; freedom to trade internationally; and regulation.

According to the report, Georgia is behind Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Ireland and United States with a cumulative score of 8.2 (out of 10). In 2015, the country ranked 9th with a cumulative score of 7.98.

Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze welcomed the country’s progress in a Twitter post, saying “positive results highlight importance of pursuing ambitious reforms to deliver tangible benefits for the business sector.”

The Fraser Institute produces the annual Economic Freedom of the World report in cooperation with the Economic Freedom Network, a group of independent research and educational institutes in nearly 100 countries and territories. The Network member in Georgia is the New Economic School (NESG), a libertarian think-tank based in Tbilisi.

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