Egypt has moved up to 10th in the Arab world and 130th worldwide in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom of 178 countries, the Washington-based think tank said on Thursday.
The title of the world’s freest economy for 2021 was retained by Singapore for the second year in a row.
According to the 2021 index published on Thursday, the foundation said Egypt’s overall score has increased by 1.7 points, with improvements in 9 of the 12 categories of economic freedom.
It added: “the country improved its economic freedom score this year for the third year in a row. To maintain that momentum, the government should pursue policy reforms to reduce public debt and upgrade institutional performance to strengthen the three rule-of-law indicators: property rights, judicial effectiveness, and government integrity.
“Business freedom has been facilitated by abolition of the mandate to obtain a certificate of non-confusion (of the company name) when starting a business and by improving one-stop-shop efficiency. The electricity supply has become more reliable.”
2021 Index of Economic Freedom (Heritage Foundation)
2021 Index of Economic Freedom (Heritage Foundation)
Below are the rankings of Arab countries in the Index of Economic Freedom:
| Country | Ranking regionally | Ranking globally | Change |
| UAE |
1st |
14th |
(+ 0.7 ↑) |
| Qatar |
2nd |
31st |
(- 0.3 ↓) |
| Bahrain |
3rd |
40th |
(+ 3.6 ↑) |
| Saudi Arabia |
4th |
63rd |
(+ 3.6 ↑) |
| Jordan |
5th |
69th |
(- 1.4 ↓) |
| Oman |
6th |
72nd |
(+ 1.0 ↑) |
| Kuwait |
7th |
74th |
(+ 0.9 ↑) |
| Morocco |
8th |
81st |
(0.0 -) |
| Tunisia |
9th |
119th |
(+ 0.8 ↑) |
| Egypt |
10th |
130th |
(+ 1.7 ↑) |
| Lebanon |
11th |
154th |
(- 0.3 ↓) |
| Algeria |
12th |
162nd |
(+ 2.8 ↑) |
| Iraq | Not ranked | Not ranked | |
| Libya | Not ranked | Not ranked | |
| Syria | Not ranked | Not ranked | |
| Yemen | Not ranked | Not ranked | |
| Somalia | Not ranked | Not ranked |
