Resilience is never more critical than in a world rocked by a pandemic, and the top-ranked countries in the 2020 FM Global Resilience Index possess strong foundations for a robust rebound.

The annual index is the definitive ranking of nearly 130 countries by the resilience of their business environments. It provides companies with objective information about countries’ economic, risk quality and supply-chain resilience – factors that create a springboard for businesses working to recover from the pandemic.

The UK is ranked 13th in this year’s update. In terms of the various drivers of resilience that underpin the country’s overall ranking, the UK ranked for: supply chain visibility (4th), quality of infrastructure (11th) and natural-hazard risk quality (12th).

The index’s top-ranked regions (in descending order) are: Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg, Austria, Central and Eastern USA (both the USA and China comprise three regions with differing natural hazard exposures).

Norway occupies the top spot for the second year in a row, supported by strong economic productivity, a stable political environment, low corruption, high natural hazard risk quality and robust corporate governance.

The bottom 10 countries (in descending order) are: Nicaragua, Nepal, Mali, Mozambique, Iran, Lebanon, Chad, Ethiopia, Venezuela and Haiti.

A major riser in this year’s index is Taiwan which climbed six places to 29th place based on improvements in its natural hazard risk quality and quality of infrastructure. A major faller in the index is Nicaragua which fell nine places to 121st place because of increases in cyber risk and political risk as well as decreased control of corruption.

 

For further reading, please visit our Knowledge Hub.