Kazakhstan has once again improved its standing in the Index of Economic Freedom of the American think tank The Heritage Freedom. Based on the 2018 Index of Economic Freedom, Kazakhstan has moved one spot up compared to the previous year and is ranked 41st in the world. Scoring 69.1 points out of 100 possible, it left its closest neighbors Russia (107th) and China (110th) far behind. In the index Kazakhstan sits between Jamaica (40th) and Colombia (42nd).
It is worth mentioning that a couple of years ago Kazakhstan was not even featured into the top 50 of the Index and was ranked 69th in the world. The Heritage Foundation’s Index scores countries based on ten factors, including freedom from corruption, business freedom, monetary freedom, labor freedom, investment freedom and more. It is noted that this year Kazakhstan demonstrated significant improvements in investment freedom and government integrity offsetting steep declines in fiscal health and monetary freedom.
In 2018, Kazakhstan is ranked 11th among 43 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and its overall score is above the regional and world averages. This year Hong Kong topped the Index of Economic Freedom for 24th time with 90.2 points. Coming in second is Singapore with 88.8 points. New Zealand (84.2 points) rounds out the top 3 of the Index. Switzerland, Australia, Ireland, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Arab Emirates are among top 10 economically free countries.
