On July 18th, 2019, the Foundation for the Development of Guatemala (FUNDESA, for its acronym in Spanish) launched its Local Competitiveness Index, a tool that allows users to compare and evaluate the performance and competitiveness of Guatemala at its municipal level.

The Local Competitiveness Index is constructed by 12 pillars and indicators that gather the different competitive conditions of each municipality, following a methodology similar than the one implemented by the World Economic Forum on its Global Competitiveness Index.

AGEXPORT, following its vision of transforming Guatemala into an exporting country, considers the Local Competitiveness Index a valuable tool to build and evaluate public policies, mainly in terms of how these policies allow the country to create more formal employment opportunities, raise productivity levels and increase its economic growth; said Mrs. Claudia de Del Aguila, Competitiveness Manager at AGEXPORT.

Looking to expand the knowledge and usage of the Local Competitiveness Index, FUNDESA and AGEXPORT signed an agreement to display the Index at AGEXPORT’s Competitiveness Observatory, an interactive and online tool with strategic information for exporting companies, key decision-makers, think tanks, universities, media companies and the public in general.

With the Local Competitiveness Index, our Competitiveness Observatory strengthened the information it offers to the general public, but more importantly to local authorities. Through our platform, everyone can view and compare the results of the 340 municipalities of Guatemala around the 12 pillars of the Local Competitiveness Index; remarked Mrs. de Del Aguila.

How to use the platform?

*Visit the website www.competitividad.gt

*At the homepage, click on the Local Competitiveness Index banner, which will take the user directly to the Index’s section.

*At this section, choose the department and municipality to view from the filters

*It will automatically display:

– The results on the different pillars of the Index for the municipality chosen

– The ranking of the municipality

– Other macroeconomic indicators

– A button to download a factsheet with different information of the municipality, including the results of the 12 pillars and the 43 indicators evaluated to build the index, along with a detailed explanation of the methodology.