Specifically, the research finds that countries that have diversified their production into more complex sectors, like Vietnam and China, are those who will experience the fastest growth in the coming decade. It predicts that when the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic dissipate, long-term growth will take off between Asia, Eastern Europe and East Africa. The Growth Lab researchers also released new country rankings of the Economic Complexity Index (ECI), which captures the diversity and sophistication of the productive capabilities embedded in the exports of each country. Despite the trade disruption of the pandemic, countries’ economic complexity rankings remain remarkably stable. The ECI ranking finds the most complex countries in the world held steady with, in order, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore at the top.
The developing economies that have made the greatest strides in improving their complexity include Vietnam (51st), Cambodia (72nd), Laos (89th) and Ethiopia (97th). Several Asian economies already hold the necessary economic complexity to drive the fastest growth over the coming decade, led by China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and India. In East Africa, several economies are expected to experience rapid growth, though driven more by population growth than gains in economic complexity, which include Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique. On a per capita basis, Eastern Europe holds strong growth potential for its continued advances in economic complexity, with Georgia, Lithuania, Belarus, Armenia, Latvia, Bosnia, Romania and Albania all ranking in the projected top 15 economies on a per capita basis.
