CSP carries out EOS 2008 in Pakistan

March 20th, 2008 Aimon · No Comments

KARACHI: The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) as the partner institution of the World Economic Forum (WEF) is carrying out the Executive Opinion Survey (EOS) 2008 in Pakistan for the Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009.

A statement here on Wednesday said that the CSF, a joint initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan, has proposed a unique strategy to the World Economic Forum to engage the academia in conducting the Executive Opinion Surveys.

It said that by doing so, CSF aims at building the capacity of the future business leaders who will soon be joining the business community and help create a group of business leaders who would be sensitized on the importance of Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), the Global Competitiveness Report’s 12 pillars and the role of business community in measuring the GCI.

Through this exercise, the students will also be provided with the opportunity to interact with the leading CEOs of the country and create industry academia linkage across Pakistan. As part of the strategy and implementation process, CSF on Wednesday held an interactive session at Iqra University, Karachi, to engage the faculty members and the students for this exercise.

The meeting included discussions on the Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008, which is published each year by the World Economic Forum and benchmarks 131 economies over the 12 competitiveness pillars.

Amir Jahangir from the Competitiveness Support Fund informed the students and the faculty members that Pakistan ranked 92 out of 131 countries on the Global Competitiveness Index and elaborated the issues concerning Pakistan’s competitiveness.

He further added that the CSF strategy has also been appreciated by the Harvard Business School and is being considered to being one of the most innovative strategies from any of the 153 World Economic Forum partner institutes.

CSF also shared that once this exercise is successfully completed, it carries the potential of being implemented across the other WEF partner institutes in 130 member countries, which will prove to be a milestone for Pakistan’s collaboration with the World Economic Forum.

The statement further pointed out that the CSF shared that the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) has been the World Economic Forum’s flagship publication and is widely recognized as the world’s leading cross-country comparator of factors affecting economic competitiveness and growth.

The Executive Opinion Survey is a major component of the Global Competitiveness Report and provides the key component that turns the Report into a representative annual measure of a country’s economic environment and its ability to achieve sustained growth. app