Coronavirus disruption puts spotlight on nations in 2020 FM Global Resilience Index
05/27/2020
As the coronavirus disruption affects nations around the world, the insurance firm FM Global recently released its 2020 Resilience Index, examining economic indicators, risk factors and supply chain issues in nearly 130 countries around the world — ranking the nations and sections of some countries by the resilience of their business environments.
“The pandemic of 2020 has tested the resilience of businesses across the world,” the company said in its executive summary. “While pandemic risk is not explicitly measured in the 2020 FM Global Resilience Index, the resilience of a country’s business environment is a reliable platform for businesses trying to rebound from the impact of the coronavirus.”
Norway kept its top position this year, followed by Switzerland and Denmark. The least resilient business climates were seen in Haiti (ranked last at No. 130), then Venezuela at No. 129 and Ethiopia at No. 128.
The United States and other large nations are divided into zones based primarily on the severity of natural disaster risks and local political factors.
The U.S. central zone (roughly the Southwest up to Idaho and across to the mid-Atlantic states) ranks No. 9 — the same as in 2019’s index. The U.S.’s east zone (The East Coast, the South and Texas) ranks 10th this year, improving one spot from 11th in 2019. And the west zone of the U.S. (Alaska, the West Coast states and a few others) fell one spot, from 22nd to 23rd.
China’s zone 1 (eastern coastal areas) improved to 68th from last year’s rank of 73th. Its zone 2 (a northern area, an east-coast district and a southern area) ranked 74th this year vs 77th in 2019. And China’s zone 3 (the bulk of the nation’s interior) improved to 65th from its rank of 68th last year.
Russia stayed ranked at 53rd.
“This evaluation allows (executives) to prioritize where they should focus their risk management and investment efforts,” the FM Global report said. “It can also inform decisions about where to locate new facilities.”
The index compiles 12 economic, risk quality and supply chain drivers (see chart below) to gauge the business resilience of the evaluated countries.
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Taiwan saw a major improvement, climbing six places to 29th place based on “improvements in its natural hazard risk quality and quality of its infrastructure,” according to a press release, which said Nicaragua dropped nine places to 121st because of its “political risk and cyber risk as well as decreased control of corruption.”