Economic Freedom Index 2020-2021

In the rating of the Index of Economic Freedom 2020-2021, Kazakhstan took the 34th place, thereby improving the results compared to last year by 5 points. The overall score increased by 1.5 points – from 69.6 points to 71.1 points.

American research center "The Heritage Foundation" (The Heritage Foundation) annually publishes a report on the economic freedom of the countries of the world.

178 countries participate in the Index of Economic Freedom 2020-2021 ranking. The leading positions are occupied by countries with free economies: Singapore (89.7 points), New Zealand (83.9 points), Australia (82.4 points), Switzerland (81.9 points) and Ireland (81.4 points).

Kazakhstan is consistently included in the group of countries with a moderately free economy and ranks 8th among 40 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, the overall score of the country is much higher than the average for the region (60.2 points) and the world value (61.6).

In general, the overall assessment of the country was influenced by a significant improvement in the fiscal well-being component-from 84.1 points to 98.3 points (+14.2). In addition, there is an improvement in such components as the efficiency of the judicial system (+0.7), the tax burden (+1.3), public spending (+1.2), freedom of business (+1.6), freedom of trade (+0.2) and monetary freedom (+1.9).

The Economic Freedom Index 2020, published earlier, notes that Kazakhstan has become one of the 10 countries with the most significant positive dynamics in terms of improving its position in the rating. Positive dynamics was noted in the following indicators:

• fiscal sustainability,
• protection of property rights,
• effectiveness of public authorities,
• efficiency of public spending, freedom of business,
• freedom of trade,
• the effectiveness of the judicial system.

Note: * - component introduced in 2021