by FFE PH News staff

The Philippines has moved 20 spots up this year’s Change Readiness Index (CRI).

KPMG, an audit, tax and advisory firm based in the Netherlands, ranked the Philippines at number 18 in the 2013 CRI, surpassing countries like China, Mexico, India, and other EU countries.

President Aquino proudly tweeted the country's achievement:

The CRI, developed alongside Oxford Economics, “assesses the ability of 90 countries (developed and developing) to manage change and cultivate the resulting opportunity.”

The three categories which the CRI is based are the Enterprise Capability, Government Capability, and People and Civil Society Capability. The Philippines ranked 23^rd, 14^th, and 26^th in these categories respectively.

Top 20 countries in this year’s CRI:

1. Singapore

2. Sweden

3. Qatar

4. New Zealand

5. Germany

6. Israel

7. Japan

8. Saudi Arabia

9. Australia

10. United Kingdom

11. Chile

12. USA

13. Taiwan

14. South Korea

15. France

16. Thailand

17. Lithuania

18. Philippines

19. Panama

20. Kazakhstan

Furthermore, KPMG listed the Philippines’ strengths: government strategic planning and horizon scanning; informal sector; environmental.

The country’s opportunities according to the index are technology uptake; economic infrastructure; access to information.

“The CRI can be used to inform national governments to identify and address capability gaps, the development community to better tailor aid programs, and private sector enterprises to improve the targeting of their investments and the reduction of risks,” according to PKMG.

Other EU countries that made in the list are Spain (21), Poland (24), Portugal (26), Turkey (32), Greece (45), Italy (50), Bosnia (57), Romania (61), Russia (62), and Ukraine (67).

The Philippines ranked 38^th out of 60 countries in last year’s CRI.