04 September 2022

Global Attractiveness Index 2022: Germany, United States and Hong Kong are the countries with the highest attractiveness, Italy is at 19th place

In 2022, Italy takes again the 19th place in the GAI ranking made by The European House - Ambrosetti, but with an increase of foreign investments and tourism

As per tradition, at the 48th Cernobbio Forum was presented an update of the Global Attractiveness Index, a platform for measuring country attractiveness that compares 148 economies, which gather 95% of the world population and 99% of the Gross Domestic Product. The Study was prepared in collaboration with Philip Morris Italia and Toyota Motor Corporations.

The 2022 ranking takes place in an extremely delicate historical moment that poses new global challenges for companies and institutions. After the global crisis caused by the pandemic from Covid-19, the current year has opened with a new breaking point in the geopolitical balance that is a source of concern and instability for world economies and especially for Italy and Europe: the Russia-Ukraine war that broke out on February 24, 2022.

From a statistical point of view, the GAI is based on a reclassification of KPIs in the following sub-indices: a Positioning Index (IP), a Dynamism Index (ID), a Sustainability Index (IS), an index related to Growth Expectations. For the seventh edition, a Conflict Exposure Index has been added, which measures a country’s degree of economic dependence with areas directly involved in the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe. 


The main results of the Global Attractiveness Index 2022

Out of 148 countries, only 7 have a high attractiveness (equal to 4.7% of the total), 9 have a medium-high attractiveness (6.1%), 47 have a medium-low attractiveness (31.8%), and the remaining 85 have a low attractiveness (57.4%).

Germany, the United States and Hong Kong are at the top of the 2022 GAI ranking, while Italy is at the 19th place, in the medium-low attractiveness range. Innovation is the macro-area in which Italy is best placed, while Efficiency is the area where it gets the worst result, due to the growth of the unemployment rate (+0.2%) and the entry of 7 new countries in the Rule of Law Index, all of them having a more advanced rule of law than Italy.

At the same time, however, Italy is regaining attractiveness on international markets in terms of foreign investment, with a variation of +108 positions compared to the previous year. This leap comes mainly from the recovery after the collapse of foreign investments due to the pandemic in 2020: at that time, the country was among those at greatest risk both for the high intensity of infection and the fragility of the country’s economic system. Italy has also registered a robust growth in tourist flows: after reaching a value of -57,6% during the pandemic, it has grown back up to +41.2% in 2021


Suggestions for action

In light of 2022 results, the GAI Advisory Board suggested a few actions to ensure greater economic and social attractiveness and growth in the country, including:

  • reform of the education system, both formal (high schools and universities) and professional (lifelong learning), as key to achieving sustainable growth
  • reduction of the tax burden on wages, to increase both medium-low wages and those of specialized workers, with benefits in terms of growth in aggregate consumption, attractiveness of talent from abroad, retention of graduates in Italy and reduction of NEETs or unemployed young people and women
  • simplification of bureaucracy to reduce the time needed for the examination and authorisation of private projects and investments towards ecological transition, thus combating the NIMBY culture (Not in my back yard) at regional level. 


To learn more, download the full report. "Global Attractiveness Index 2022 - The thermometer of the attractiveness of a country"

Italian version