The report, conducted by CME in partnership with Canada’s Fraser Institute, essentially measures the ability of individuals to make their own economic decisions across 165 jurisdictions.

In order to gauge this, it analyses key components such as the country’s size of government, its legal structure and security of property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation of credit, labour, and business.

The report, which is based on data from 2021 due to the availability of comparable data across countries, shows that Malaysia has deteriorated in recent years.

“The year before, in 2020, Malaysia ranked 53rd. The 2021 score thus represented a deterioration in Malaysia’s ranking, with the overall economic freedom rating for Malaysia dropping from 7.28 in 2020 to 7.19 in 2021,” said CME CEO Carmelo Ferlito.

He added that the country’s performance should serve as a red light to policymakers on the country’s deteriorating economic freedom.

However, he expressed hope that the government’s recent Madani initiatives will promote policies that will improve Malaysia’s scores in the coming years.

“Thankfully, the Madani economy framework recently laid out by this government signals in part a commitment towards institutional reforms and pro-market policies like promoting free trade, improving ease of doing business, and rebuilding fiscal discipline.

“These should help improve Malaysia’s showing in future reports,” he said.

Singapore and Hong Kong continued to maintain their dominance at the forefront of the index, securing the 1st and 2nd positions respectively.

The rest of the top ten was composed of Switzerland, New Zealand, the US, Ireland, Denmark, Australia, the UK, and Canada.

In contrast, the countries occupying the lowest rungs of the rankings were Congo, Algeria, Argentina, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe, with Venezuela occupying the last position.