Economic Complexity by Country 2024

Each year, the Harvard University Center for International Development's Growth Lab evaluates countries around the world for economic complexity. The Economic Complexity Index (ECI) examines how many products a country exports, as well as the complexity of those products, and then scores each country. Higher scores indicate a more complex export economy.

Japan has an ECI score of 2.27, which has not changed in the last five years. Its high score is a result of exports growing by 3.1% over the five-year period leading up to 2021, which saw Japan export $973 billion in products and services. It is followed by Switzerland at 2.14, Germany at 1.96, and South Korea at 1.95. The top 11 countries have ECI scores that changed very little between the years 2015 and 2020. Four counties had no change in score, five counties had their score increase by one, and two countries had their score decrease by one.

The United States is in twelfth position with a score of 1.47, having lost three points over that same five-year period. Although the products exported by the US are complex, this drop has to do with the lack of diversification among US exports. The ECI indicates that the economy will grow slowly over the next decade, putting the US in the bottom half of countries when ranked for growth.

The countries with the most positive change between 2015 and 2020 are Libya, Cambodia, Uzbekistan, and Trinidad and Tobago, all of which saw scores improve by at least twenty points. While Libya saw a decline in non-oil exports, overall, it saw exports grow by 27% over five years. Cambodia saw both overall and non-oil exports grow by 8% over five years, Uzbekistan saw growth of 15.5% for all exports and 17% for non-oil exports, and Trinidad and Tobago saw growth of 5.9% overall and 9.3% for non-oil exports. What links all of these countries together is the exceptional growth that outpaced the global average and exceeded expectations.

However, the United Arab Emirates, Botswana, and Mali all saw the most negative change in their ECI scores.