For the 19th year in a row, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank, has ranked the city of Hong Kong the freest economy in the world.
Hong Kong was rated the freest economy in the world.
Singapore was a close second, however, followed by Australia and New Zealand. Switzerland was ranked fifth. The U.S., which has the world’s largest economy, was ranked 10th while mainland China — the world’s second largest economy — was ranked 136th out of 177 economies on the Index of Economic Freedom, a publication co-sponsored by the Wall Street Journal.
However, the editors of the index noted that the global average, which peaked in 2008, has been in decline. “The global advance toward economic freedom has ground to a halt,” the index editors said in a new release. . . (read more)
{Image c/o CNN, article by Kevin Voigt, CNN}
