The Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom for 2019, a broad indicator of economic freedom in 180 countries, shows that the level of economic freedom in 15 Arab countries slightly deteriorated from the 2018 survey. The region's level of economic freedom stood at 58.9% in 2019, down from 59.1% in 2018, and compared to the global average of 60.8% this year. The GCC countries have an average score of 66.5% in 2019, compared to 66.8% in the 2018 index, while non-GCC Arab countries post an average of 53.9% in 2019, unchanged from last year. The index evaluates individual economies on the basis of 12 equally-weighted broad factors of economic freedom. The rankings of nine Arab countries improved and six deteriorated, while the scores of six Arab countries improved, those of six economies regressed and the scores of three countries were unchanged from the 2018 survey. The UAE is the ninth freest economy in the world and is the only Arab country to rank among the top 20 worldwide. Qatar followed in 28th place, then Jordan (53rd) and Bahrain (54th). In contrast, Lebanon (154th), Sudan (166th), Djibouti (169th) and Algeria (171st) are the lowest ranked Arab countries. Two Arab economies came in the "mostly free" category, six countries had economies that were "moderately free", four were "mostly unfree" and three were "repressed" economies. Also, the survey upgraded the economy of Saudi Arabia to the "moderately free" category from the "mostly unfree" segment. Further, the region's level of economic freedom is higher than in Latin America & the Caribbean (58.4%), South Asia (55.5%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (54.3%), while it is lower than in North America (77.3%), Europe & Central Asia (67.4%) and East Asia & Pacific (62.8%).
Source: Heritage Foundation, Byblos Research