Mauritius Eighth Freest Economy

“Its overall score is 0.8 point higher than last year, with improvements in property rights, monetary freedom, and the management of government spending,” according to the 18th annual Index of Economic Freedom, released on Thursday by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal.

Mauritius is ranked first out of 46 countries in the Sub-Saharan African region, and its overall score is well above the world average.

The Mauritius government’s continued commitment to structural reforms and policies that promote integration into the global marketplace has positioned the island economy as a world leader in economic freedom.

In the 2012 Index, Mauritius becomes the first Sub-Saharan African country ever to advance into the top 10 in the rankings. The economy’s impressive progress is underpinned by a sound and transparent legal framework that strongly upholds the rule of law. A competitive tax regime and an efficient regulatory environment have encouraged broad-based and diversified economic development.

Open-market policies that support dynamic trade and investment have bolstered productivity and competitiveness. “With only a modest natural resource base, economic prosperity has been achieved through policies that encourage flexibility and empower individuals,” it said.

With a well-developed legal and commercial infrastructure and a tradition of entrepreneurship and representative government, Mauritius is one of the developing world’s most successful democracies and one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s strongest economies.

Mauritius has one of the region’s highest per capita incomes, and the government is trying to modernise the sugar and textile industries while promoting diversification into such areas as information and communications technology, financial and business services, seafood processing and exports, and free trade zones, the annual report said, adding that agriculture and industry have become less important, and services, especially tourism, are now the economic mainstay. “Mauritius is one of Africa’s least corrupt countries too.”

The average economic freedom score for the 2012 Indexstands at 59.5 — on a scale in which 100 represents the ideal down two-tenths of a point from 2011.

Hong Kong and Singapore finished first and second in the rankings for the 18th straight year followed by Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland, while Canada finished sixth, slipping almost a full point and falling out of the group of ‘free’ economies into the ‘mostly free’ category.