South Africa's ranking of forty-fourth in the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2010 had disguised a relatively impressive performance of the country in a number of the components on which the survey is based, competitiveness expert Dr Hischam El-Agamy told a Johannesburg audience in a recent presentation.

El-Agamy, who is an executive director of the IMD business school in Switzerland, and a former member of the World Competitiveness Council, pointed out that the ranking of a country's competitiveness was based on 327 criteria and that South Africa had climbed to its current ranking from 48 in 2009, having slumped to below 50 in 2007 and 2008.

Speaking at an event sponsored by the JSE and Finlay & Associates, he pointed out that South Africa was also still the only African country recorded in the yearbook, which ranks 58 of the globe's most competitive countries - "an achievement in itself".

In 2010, Singapore topped the ranking, followed by Hong Kong, the US and Switzerland.

But had it not been for South Africa's poor performance in the area of unemployment, where it ranked last, as well as in skills, the "brain drain" and security, it could have performed better.

Even in the area of government efficiency, South Africa ranked a creditable 21, which El-Agamy said always served to confound South African audiences, who perceived their government to be inept.

In the area of business efficiency, South Africa also performed strongly, coming in at number 31 in the report, which was published in May.

El-Agamy encouraged South Africans to look beyond the overall ranking, arguing that they would be "surprised" by some of the results.