List of countries by economic complexity

This list orders countries by their Economic Complexity Index (ECI), as it was defined and calculated by César Hidalgo and Ricardo Hausmann and published by The Observatory of Economic Complexity.

Country rankings

Country Complexity Rankings^[1]
Rank	Country	Economic complexity index (2018)	Change in 5 years (2013-18)	Change in 10 years (2008-18)
1	Japan	2.43
2	Switzerland	2.17	1	1
3	Republic of Korea	2.11	4	8
4	Germany	2.09	2	2
5	Singapore	1.85		1
6	Austria	1.81	2	1
7	Czech Republic	1.80	1	2
8	Sweden	1.70		3
9	Hungary	1.66		5
10	Slovenia	1.62	3	3
11	United States	1.55	1	1
12	Finland	1.55	2	1
13	United Kingdom	1.51	2	5
14	Italy	1.44	2	3
15	Slovakia	1.41		1
16	France	1.37	2	1
17	Ireland	1.36		7
18	China	1.34		6
19	Romania	1.34
20	Mexico	1.29	6	3
21	Israel	1.20	1	1
22	Belgium	1.18	2	9
23	Thailand	1.17		2
24	Poland	1.10	3	6
25	Denmark	1.09		5
26	Malaysia	1.03	3	1
27	Netherlands	0.98		5
28	Estonia	0.96	2	4
29	Belarus	0.89	7	1
30	Croatia	0.87	1	1
31	Lithuania	0.86	5	10
32	Spain	0.83	4	7
33	Portugal	0.80	1	1
34	Latvia	0.70	3	6
35	Philippines	0.67	3	10
36	Saudi Arabia	0.67	33	71
37	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.67	4	1
38	Serbia	0.67	1	2
39	Canada	0.65	2
40	Turkey	0.64	2	2
41	Bulgaria	0.55	1	5
42	India	0.54	10	8
43	Norway	0.44	8	8
44	Ukraine	0.37	1
45	Lebanon	0.35		2
46	Tunisia	0.34	2	8
47	Costa Rica	0.33	4	10
48	Bahrain	0.30	10	37
49	Brazil	0.21	2	1
50	Cyprus	0.18	4	24
51	Jordan	0.17	1	2
52	Vietnam	0.14	11	11
53	El Salvador	0.13	2	7
54	New Zealand	0.13	5	3
55	Greece	0.11	2	3
56	Colombia	0.10	4	3
57	North Macedonia	0.07	11	8
58	Trinidad and Tobago	0.05	24	23
59	Kyrgyzstan	0.04	11	8
60	Uruguay	0.02	6	5
61	Indonesia	0.02	1	1
62	United Arab Emirates	-0.01	18	6
63	South Africa	-0.02	7	7
64	Russia	-0.04	1	3
65	Georgia	-0.04	1	21
66	Egypt	-0.06	1	4
67	Eswatini	-0.08	6	34
68	Tanzania	-0.09	25	28
69	Mauritius	-0.17	3	3
70	Dominican Republic	-0.18	4	6
71	Moldova	-0.18	18	13
72	Chile	-0.18		1
73	Argentina	-0.21	14	14
74	Panama	-0.24	42	37
75	Qatar	-0.31	14	36
76	Albania	-0.32	7
77	Kenya	-0.34	2	1
78	Sri Lanka	-0.36	1	9
79	Armenia	-0.39	8	32
80	Uzbekistan	-0.41	18	9
81	Namibia	-0.43	3	15
82	Guatemala	-0.45	9	11
83	Oman	-0.48	14	17
84	Botswana	-0.48	11	9
85	Mali	-0.49	33	8
86	Uganda	-0.50	2	5
87	Australia	-0.53	3	5
88	Burkina Faso	-0.55	12	28
89	Paraguay	-0.55	2	1
90	Cambodia	-0.56	1	12
91	Morocco	-0.56	6	4
92	Jamaica	-0.58	11	18
93	Kazakhstan	-0.59	16	1
94	Zambia	-0.62	15	12
95	Senegal	-0.63	7	2
96	Laos	-0.63	12	5
97	Ethiopia	-0.66	19	7
98	Honduras	-0.67	4	1
99	Pakistan	-0.68	3	20
100	Kuwait	-0.70	19	33
101	Iran	-0.71	31	21
102	Togo	-0.78	16	12
103	Ghana	-0.80	4	2
104	Peru	-0.81	12	20
105	Nicaragua	-0.84	3	7
106	Turkmenistan	-0.84	11	2
107	Monaco	-0.88	13	11
108	Bangladesh	-0.88	2	14
109	Zimbabwe	-0.93	2	26
110	Ivory Coast	-0.96	1	5
111	Myanmar	-0.97	4	6
112	Ecuador	-0.97	7	13
113	Madagascar	-1.01	12	18
114	Mauritania	-1.03	18	13
115	Bolivia	-1.04	1	12
116	Tajikistan	-1.09	4	3
117	Cuba	-1.11	41	37
118	Malawi	-1.12	15	6
119	Venezuela	-1.14	2	1
120	Liberia	-1.15	16	10
121	Mozambique	-1.25	8	7
122	Algeria	-1.31	7	2
123	Yemen	-1.31	1	4
124	Azerbaijan	-1.37	1	3
125	Republic of the Congo	-1.42	3	3
126	Gabon	-1.43	4
127	Guinea	-1.43	4	2
128	Libya	-1.46	5	1
129	Cameroon	-1.60	19	20
130	Papua New Guinea	-1.68	3	3
131	Angola	-1.71	7
132	Democratic Republic of the Congo	-1.80	6	9
133	Nigeria	-1.90	2	3

Factors affecting differences between countries

As an illustration, we can observe the differences between Egypt and Thailand in ECI ranking between the years of 1995 and 2015, let us use the below figures as an example:

Rank	Country	ECI Value	Year
45	Thailand	0.30	1995
75	Egypt	-0.41	1995

24	Thailand	1.06	2015
68	Egypt	-0.23	2015

Difference in 1995: 0.71 ECI points for Thailand
Difference in 2015: 1.28824 ECI points for Thailand

Increase for Egypt 1995-2015: 0.18037 ECI Points
Increase for Thailand 1995-2015: 0.7575 ECI Points

When we dig deeper into the export data of both countries, we can deduce that the differences were mainly in the composition of their relative export baskets. The more countries direct their efforts to more sophisticated products, the more it is reflected in the ECI score, and hence their potential economic growth.

For example, from 1995-2015, Thailand appears to have phased away from largely ubiquitous products “fur: 0.1 on the Product Complexity Index ("PCI"), Leather: 0.9 PCI, footwear: -0.7 PCI”, and focused their exports into products that few other countries can make “Cars: 2.47 PCI, parts and accessories of motor vehicles: 3.18 PCI, motor vehicles for transporting good: 1.87 PCI”.

Egypt, on the other hand, also experienced an increase in complexity, albeit much less than the one experienced by Thailand. They had a relatively high growth as a share of their total export portfolio in monitors and projectors: 0.9 PCI, but they also had a growth in insulated wires which has a PCI of -0.48.

So, in general, we can observe that Thailand has expanded in products with higher PCI than the ones they phased out from, while Egypt expanded in some higher PCI products, and also some lower ones hence the difference in ECI growth between the two.

For reference data, please go to https://oec.world/en/rankings/eci/hs6/hs96?tab=table

References

[1]