Philippines climbs to 56th in global competitiveness report
Philstar Global
05 November 2025
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines climbed five places to the 56th spot out of 69 economies in this year’s World Digital Competitiveness Ranking (WDCR) released by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Competitiveness Center (WCC).
The Philippines got a score of 50.87 this year, an improvement from 45.18 last year.
Released annually, the report measures the capacity and readiness of economies to adopt digital technologies for economic transformation in business, government and the wider society.
Economies are ranked using hard data and survey responses from business and government executives.
Through the report, IMD aims to help policymakers and companies understand what drives performance and where they should focus their resources.
IMD looks at digital competitiveness through the following factors: knowledge, technology and future readiness.
In the knowledge factor, the Philippines’ ranking slid to 65th from last year’s 64th.
The report cited female researchers as the country’s strength, while artificial intelligence articles were tagged as a weak point.
Meanwhile, the Philippines moved up to 54th place from the previous year’s 56th in terms of technology.
IMD said investments in telecommunications and high-tech exports are strong areas for the Philippines in technology, but starting a business, enforcing contracts and communications technology need improvement.
When it comes to future readiness, the Philippines went up to 52nd place from the previous year’s 58th spot.
While the Philippines is strong in flexibility and adaptability and public-private partnerships, the report showed that the country needs to work on the government’s cybersecurity capacity.
Within Southeast Asia, the Philippines lagged behind its neighbors Singapore (third), Malaysia (34th), Thailand (38th) and Indonesia (51st).
Overall, Switzerland topped the list, followed by the United States and Singapore.
Amid global trade fragmentation, the report said economies need to find new strategic advantages in the digital sphere.
IMD WCC director Arturo Bris said that trade fragmentation is affecting digital competitiveness in three main ways.
In particular, it is creating winners and losers in digital infrastructure, based on investments made in building a better framework for telecommunications and use of technologies.
While talent remains mobile, Bris also said that people are not entering certain countries in the same numbers due to geopolitical instability.
“This affects digital competitiveness when domestic policies and regional instability combust into a situation where more talent is leaving the country than entering it,” he said.
Bris also cited regulatory advantages as key determinants of digital competitiveness.
“Regulatory clarification and safety enable companies and governments to incorporate the technology available as efficiently and effectively as possible,” he said noting that the European Union, US and Southeast Asia are recognizing this through certain regulatory improvements.
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