The Heritage Foundation of the United States has rated Macao as the 19th freest among 179 economies worldwide in its 2011 Report on the Index of Economic Freedom, the Monetary Authority of Macao said on Wednesday (Jan 12).
Macao's overall score has improved slightly by 0.6 from a year earlier to 73.1 in the Foundation's rating, making its ranking go up one place from a year earlier, according to the Monetary Authority.
Macao, a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, also ranked the fifth in the Asia-Pacific region on the Foundation's list, just behind China's Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
The Authority also quoted the report as saying that Macao's overall entrepreneurial environment incorporates high efficiency and low-tax, while property rights are well respected, and foreign investors can conduct business on the same terms as locals.
The Foundation's study covers economies in different regions across the world, which are assessed with 10 factors of economic freedom. Macao ranks relatively high in factors such as trade freedom, government spending, investment freedom, monetary freedom, fiscal freedom and financial freedom.
The Heritage Foundation is a well-known conservative American think tank based in Washington D.C.. According to the Foundation, economic freedom is strongly related to economic performance, and Per capita incomes are much higher in societies that are economically free.
