China has kept progressing in various aspects of its talent competitiveness and will, for sure, have the best talent tool in the next decade, Arturo Bris, director of World Competitiveness Center at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), has said.

Last week, the Switzerland-based IMD released the "2025 IMD World Talent Ranking" report, which showed that China's overall ranking remained stable and that China will have "the best talent pool" in the world within the next decade.

In the annual report, China's ranking this year remains in the 38th place in terms of talent competitiveness. But "China ranks number one in terms of the quality of education indicator and in the number of graduates in science. There is the availability of talent and a very large talent pool," Bris told Xinhua in a virtual interview.

China, he said, has demonstrated an improvement in the readiness factor, which refers to the quality of the labor force, or whether companies can find the talent that they need.

The IMD World Talent Ranking this year assesses 69 economies' capacity to develop, attract, and retain the human capital required to sustain growth across three pillars: investment and development, appeal, and readiness. It uses a mixture of statistical data and survey responses from thousands of executives.

This year's report found that younger executives under 40, who have lived through two economic recessions in their careers, are more financially cautious and less willing to gamble on international moves without a guaranteed financial reward.

This shows the impact of a shifting global landscape, both politically and economically, according to the authors, who blame it on a "perfect storm" of crises, ranging from the wars in Europe and the Middle East, spiking inflation, to rising food and energy prices.

"As usual, China keeps on progressing in many different aspects of its competitiveness," Bris said of the outlook for China's talent pool.

"Talent takes time to develop and to nurture. Educational policies, for example, pay off in one or two generations, especially in the case of China because of its huge population," he said.

"But even in this case, China will be among the top 10 most competitive countries in the world. It will also have the best talent pool in the next decade, for sure," Bris noted.

The IMD works with more than 19,000 executives from over 120 countries and regions. In this year's rankings, Switzerland maintained the first-place position, Luxembourg reclaimed the second place, and Iceland rose from the sixth to the third. 

Source: Xinhua