Qatar converges towards developed nations' performance in UNCTAD Productive Capacities Index

Qatar is gradually converging towards the performance of developed countries in United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’ Productive Capacities Index, a report by UNCTAD has shown.
PCI measures countries’ abilities to produce goods and deliver services, which are critical for international trade and global production value chains.
Along with Qatar, some economies like Chile and China also converge gradually towards the performance of developed countries with the average score of 61.
The PCI shows that developed economies have higher productive capacity scores, with economies such as Denmark, Australia and the United States leading the pack with an average score of 70 out of 100 on the composite index.
On the other extreme are African economies such as Chad, Malawi and Niger, which each register an overall PCI score of below 20.
Among developing regions, Asia and Latin America, overall, perform better than the African region.
PCI maps the productive capacities of some 194 economies and provides a better measure of development than other traditional benchmarks such as gross domestic product (GDP). It’s multidimensional and measures economic inputs and potential as opposed to outputs.
For governments, the PCI is a powerful and practical tool to track progress over time and forge informed policies to plug development gaps. It can help countries respond to a call by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to move beyond GDP and measure the things that really matter to people and their communities.
UNCTAD secretary-general Rebeca Grynspan said: “No nation has ever developed without building the required productive capacities, which are key to enabling countries to achieve sustained economic growth with accelerated poverty reduction, economic diversification and job creation.”
UNCTAD defines productive capacities as “the productive resources, entrepreneurial capabilities and production linkages that together determine the capacity of a country to produce goods and services and enable it to grow and develop.”
According to UNCTAD, countries need reliable tools that respond to changing global conditions. In view of the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and climate change, external shocks increasingly affect countries’ abilities for sustainable development.
While headline economic indicators like GDP capture economic production as a measure of output, the PCI takes a novel approach to measuring development progress.
Originally released by UNCTAD in 2021, the newly updated index is an enhanced data-driven tool to help countries improve their development policies. It follows a robust, revised methodology and updates the data for the period 2000 to 2022.
The PCI has helped several developing countries to assess their productive capacities and develop programmes to plug gaps.