Saturday, October 10, 2009

Britain ranked the top financial center

The latest data collated by the World Economic Forum (WEF) put Britain on the top of the list of leading 55 countries, as the global favorite financial center.

The former leader, USA, has been pushed into third, by the second-place Australia, reported Britain's Daily Telegraph on October 8.

This is despite London's woes due to the ongoing world financial crisis, and what is perceived to be lighter regulations in the US.

The poll, which looked at 120 variables, gave Britain a score of 5.28 out of 7. Although this showed a drop of 0.55 points, it still puts the island state ahead of the US, which dropped 0.73 points to 5.12.

“The UK and the US may still show leadership in the rankings, but their significant drops in score show increasing weakness and imply their leadership may be in jeopardy,” said Kevin Steinberg, chief executive of WEF USA.

The WEF ranking is not an indicator of simple stability. If that were the case, then Norway, Switzerland and Chile would have been the top three in that order, with Malaysia, Brazil and Mexico among the top 15.

Professor Nouriel Roubini, the prominent economist who led the study said: “The change in scores does demonstrate the implications of the downturn on our assessment of the long-term development of financial systems.”

ZAP/MB

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