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Fri, 05/31/2013 - 11:36
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Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ From foreign press The U.S. topped the 2013 world competitiveness ranking of 60 economies, followed by Switzerland and China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, according to the IMD business school in Switzerland. The U.S. regained the top spot this year after having ranked the second in 2012 due to a rebounding financial sector, an abundance of technological innovation and successful companies, IMD business school said on Thursday in an annual report. Switzerland rose to the second place this year from last year's third, outranking the rest of Europe and surpassing Hong Kong which fell to the third place. In Asia, the Chinese mainland and Japan also saw their competitiveness ranking rise by two and three notches to the 21st and 24th place respectively. In Europe, Switzerland, Sweden, and Germany were the most competitive, whose success was built on export-oriented manufacturing, diversified economies, strong small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and fiscal discipline, according to the report. In Latin America, the rankings showed that Mexico, which ranked the 32nd, has seen a small revival in its competitiveness. xxxxxx United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) placed a call to action on Thursday for the international community to "see the child before the disability," focusing on what children with disabilities can achieve, rather than what they cannot do. Concentrating on abilities rather than disabilities would benefit society as a whole, UNICEF said in its annual State of the World's Children's report launched in Vietnam on Thursday. UNICEF's flagship publication highlighted this year not just the challenges of the estimated tens of millions of children who live with disabilities, but also the contributions they can make, if allowed to achieve their ambitions. "When you see the disability before the child, it is not only wrong for the child, but it deprives society of all that child has to offer," UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said in a press release issued here. "Their loss is society's loss; their gain is society's gain," he said. The report noted that children with disabilities are among the most marginalized. It said that marginalization often begins at birth, which too often goes unregistered. If children are not recognized officially, they are cut off from healthcare, education and opportunity. "For children with disabilities to count, they must be counted--at birth, at school and in life," Lake said in the press release. Therefore, the report proposed nine recommendations to bolster international commitment to ensuring that children with disabilities live full, productive lives and are given the chance to make their contribution to society. It said that greater efforts to include children with disabilities--for instance by mainstreaming them in education--would tackle the discrimination that pushes them to the margins. Mobilizing political will is critical, said the report, urging all nations to ratify and implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. So far, about one third of all nations have failed to ratify the treaty. The State of the World's Children's 2013 report also stressed that every body has a role to play in reducing discrimination, from governments, which create inclusive infrastructure and legal and social protections, to communities--and to the private sector, which can do more to embrace diversity, particularly in hiring processes. "The path ahead is challenging," said Lake. "But, children do not accept unnecessary limits. Neither should we."

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