rank

Last year’s highest accommodation ratings published

Based on guests’ ratings, Delina.hu reported that Trivago.hu had drawn a list of the most popular international and Hungarian tourist destinations.

Trivago was launched 11 years ago as the world’s largest accommodation search platform. It compares more than 1 million accommodations from more than 250 different booking websites every day. About 120 million users choose Trivago as a starting point for planning their journeys.

Trivago Rating Index (tRI) is an index number from 1 to 100 which is globally counted based on more than 175 millions of accommodation-ratings by business analysts. This number takes into account all the ratings on the metasearch engine, including how many ratings a given accommodation received in general. For getting onto the global list, at least 130 accommodations are needed. Regarding the list of the Hungarian destinations, at least 50 are enough for each town. In both cases, at least 60 ratings are necessary, Delina.hu wrote.

With 84,12 tRI, Budapest occupies the first place of the list, closely followed by popular spa towns, like Gyula, Sárvár and Hévíz, that got into the top 10 and also into the international top 100 list.

On the global toplist destinations having at least 130 accommodations with at least 60 ratings each may compete. Three Hungarian destinations also got into the top 100, namely Budapest on the 27th, Hévíz on the 59th and Eger on the 66th place.

Based on the statistics of the metasearch engine called Reputation Ranking, as Delina.hu explained, Trivago compiled the Hungarian list, too. For getting onto the list, at least 50 accommodations having at least 60 rates are necessary.

Copy editor: bm

Economist Intelligence Unit: Hungary democracy with flaws

Budapest (MTI) – Hungary is a free and democratic country, but has problems with certain aspects of democracy, particularly the level of political participation, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index for 2016.
The Democracy Index is a report published annually which ranks 167 countries according to their electoral processes, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political culture and political participation. Countries are scored in each category on a scale of 0 to 10. Based on their scores, the countries are placed into one of four types of regimes: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes or authoritarian regimes.

In the 2016 report, Hungary is again classified as a flawed democracy, the category with the most — 57 — countries. Other flawed democracies include all other EU member states in central Europe, several euro-zone member states and, for the first time, the United States, which has been demoted from a full democracy.

The 2016 Democracy Index ranked Hungary 56th with a score of 6.72 points. Hungary received its highest score, 9.17 points, in the electoral process and pluralism category. It was given 7.06 points for civil liberties, 6.07 points for the functioning of government and 6.88 points for its political culture. Hungary’s lowest score was 4.44 points, in the category of political participation.

Last year Hungary was ranked 54th, tied with the Philippines, with an overall score of 6.84 points.

Hungary falls 7 places on TI’s corruption index

Budapest, January 25 (MTI) – Hungary has fallen seven places to 57th on Transparency International’s (TI) corruption index, TI Hungary’s managing director Péter József Martin said on Wednesday, presenting the organisation’s 2016 report.

He said Hungary’s performance last year, with 48 points, was its weakest in the past six years and it had “declined conspicuously” within the European Union and the region.

Martin said the majority of countries had taken retrograde steps in combatting corruption. Of the 176 countries surveyed by TI, 121 scored fewer than 50 points on the scale in which zero is “very corrupt” and 100 is “very clean”.

Countries perceived to be the least corrupt include Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden and Norway, whereas the most corrupt are Somalia, South Sudan, North Korea, Syria and Yemen.

Taking the rest of the Visegrad Group countries, Slovakia was in 54th place with a score of 51, the Czech Republic was ranked 47 with a score of 55 and Poland was in 29th place with a score of 62.

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Government reaction

Commenting on the report, government spokesman Zoltán Kovács said it was “interesting” that TI had not made similar comments about Hungary under the Gyurcsány-Bajnai governments before 2010 when “European Union funds were being embezzled” and economic growth was declining. Despite there having been multiple signs under the leftist governments indicating that there had been “fundamental problems” with the use of public funds, TI had not issued these kinds of criticisms towards Hungary at the time, Kovacs said.

But over the past several years, a new tendency has taken root in Hungary, as the current government is responsible in its use of public money and thanks to its disciplined spending, the country has successfully emerged from the excessive deficit procedure the EU had launched against it, he insisted. The long-term growth path Hungary is on has allowed the government to increase spending, and with it, launch career models and raise wages, Kovács said.

“At the very least, it is strange to accuse Hungary now, under the Orban government, of having a problem with corruption,” he said.

The government spokesman said there were no EU economic indicators about Hungary that gave greater cause for concern about corruption in the country.

Kovács also reaffirmed the government’s commitment to fighting corruption.

Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Hungary stay in 26th place in latest FIFA rankings

 

Hungary have maintained their ranking of 26 in the latest year-ending FIFA list.

December’s list is largely the same as the previous month’s with no change at the top; FIFA World Cup qualifying group rivals Portugal are still in 8th and Switzerland stable in 11th after the latter’s 100% winning record in the qualifiers so far. Having said that, Latvia and the Faroe Islands have each improved one place to 111th and 83rd respectively with Andorra remaining in 203rd spot.

Overall, Argentina lead the rankings with Brazil in second and world champions Germany in 3rd.

The latest FIFA rankings:

1. (1.) Argentina 1634 points
2. (2.) Brazil 1544
3. (3.) Germany 1433
4. (4.) Chile 1404
5. (5.) Belgium 1368
6. (6.) Colombia 1345
7. (7.) France 1305
8. (8.) Portugal 1229
9. (9.) Uruguay 1187
10. (10.) Spain 1166
11. (11.) Switzerland 1129
12. (12.) Wales 1121
13. (13.) England 1114
14. (14.) Croatia 1103
15. (15.) Poland 1087
…26. (26.) HUNGARY 826
…83. (84.) Faroe Islands 422
…111. (112.) Latvia 304
…203. (203.) Andorra 12

Hungarian restaurants among the bests

According to szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu, Onyx, Olimpia, Costes and Anyumkám mondta got into to monumental compilation of La Liste.

La Liste, collecting and ranking the best restaurant of the world, is made every year. This year four Hungarian restaurant could get onto the list of the top thousand: Onyx, Olimpia and Costes from Budapest and Anyukám mondta from Encs – congratulations.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMoCDX2D-lt/

anyukam_mondta
Anyukám mondta, Encs / Photo:anyukammondta.hu
costes
Costes, Budapest / Photo: Facebook.com/ Costes Restaurant
olimpia
Olimpia, Budapest / Photo: Facebook.com/ Olimpia Vendéglő – Hivatalos Oldal

The list is led by the Parisian Guy Savoy restaurant, then come many world-class restaurants, such as Kyo Aji in Japan, Le Bernardin in New York, El Celler de Can Roca in Spain or Osteria Francescana in Modena.

The whole list can be found here. The restaurants can be searched on the map by country.

Copy editor: bm

Three Hungarian companies in the top 500

Three Hungarian companies got onto the European, Middle Eastern and African (EMEA) ranking list of Deloitte Technology Fast 500, which ranks the fastest developing technological companies of the region – reports napi.hu.

It was the 15th time that Deloitte announced the Technology Fast 500 list, 20 countries became ranked in the EMEA region. The revenue-increase of the last four years was taken into account when they compiled the list. Among the Hungarian companies Innovatix Kft. is the 93th with its tenfold (1070%) increase, Attrecto Zrt. is the 138th with the increase of 764% and JCQ Hungary Kft. deserved the 239th place with its increase of 480%.

INNOVATIX develops visual technical solutions and smart phone applications, Attrecto Zrt. is also a smart phone software developing company, while JCQ Hungary Kft. developes light modernization solutions with LED techniques for the different branches of the industry.

The list is led by the Swedish software-making Fingerprint Cards AB, which offers fingerprint-biometric solutions; the majority of the companies on the list are from the software industry.

According to Balász Csűrös, program leader of Deloitte, the Central-European companies are taking larger and larger parts out of the fastest increasing global technological companies while the significance of the nano- and biotechnological  companies, as well as the energy industry, have increased.

France is the best represented country on the list – similarly to the previous years – with 94 France-based companies. England and the Netherlands are on the second and third place. There are ten Central-European companies in the top 100 of the list.

The whole Central-European region is represented by 39 companies on the Technology Fast 500 list, out of them 15 companies are Poland-based. Six Czech, four Slovakian, three-three Croatian, Romanian and Hungarian, and one Bosnian Herzegovinian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Serbian and Slovenian company is on the list.

Photo: index.hu

Copy editor: bm

Hungarian passport is ranked among the world’s thirty most powerful ones

The world has changed a great deal since the communist era 30 years ago when Hungarian citizens like citizens of other communist countries were allowed to travel to western Europe only once every three years. Thirty years later, the Hungarian passport ranked among the world’s thirty most powerful ones according to Passport Index that ranked the passports of 199 countries around the world. Holders of Hungarian passport can enter 151 countries without a visa.

Passport Index takes into account how many countries can be visited without applying for a visa. Hungarians can travel to 151 countries without a visa, which is only slightly less than owners of German passport, which came out on top.

In our region only the Czech passport can compete with the Hungarian one.

There is little difference among the passports ranked in the top thirty. For instance, German and Hungarian passport holders can feel the difference only if they travel to Mongolia, Namibia, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Guyana, the Kingdom of Lesotho and Rwanda, places where Germans citizens need no visa, but in the rest of the world German and Hungarian passport holders enjoy the same benefits.

The world’s least powerful passports belong to citizens of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq; they are allowed to enter less than thirty countries without a visa.

CHECK THE PASSPORT INDEX HERE!

translated by hungarianambiance.com

Hungarian national team now 26th in latest FIFA world rankings

After a 4-0 win over Andorra and a 2-0 friendly loss against Sweden, Hungary are 26th in the new FIFA world rankings released on Thursday and still led by Argentina.

The top of the rankings list:

1. Argentina 1634 points
2. Brazil 1544
3. Germany 1433
4. Chile 1404
5. Belgium 1368
6. Colombia 1345
7. France 1305
8. Portugal 1229
9. Uruguay 1187
10. Spain 1166
11. Switzerland 1129

26. Hungary 826

84. Faroe Islands 422
112. Latvia 304

 

These are the best Hungarian universities and colleges for 2017

university students

According to eduline.hu, Eötvös Loránd Science University’s Faculty of Humanities and Faculty of Science, and Semmelweis University’s Faculty of Medicine is in the lead on HVG’s newest higher education list.

Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) won back its leading place on HVG’s higher education ranking list. It is in the first place on the list, which is based on professor and student excellence, thus passing the University of Szeged, University of Pécs and Semmeweis University. Moreover, ELTE’s Faculty of Humanities and Faculty of Science is tied in the lead with Semmelweis’s Faculty of Medicine on the 2017 ranking list of faculties.

Several faculties of humanities and medicine have made it into the top 10 list of university and college faculties. Besides the Faculty of Humanities in Pécs and Szeged, Pázmány Péter Catholic University’s Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences also finished in great places, just like the medical faculties of Debrecen, Pécs and Szeged, and Budapest University of Technology and Economics’ Faculty of Natural Sciences.

The top 10 university and college faculties (their places concerning professor and student excellency are in brackets):

  1. Eötvös Loránd Science University – Faculty of Humanities (13. and 3.) – tie
  2. Eötvös Loránd Science University – Faculty of Science (6. and 10.) – tie
  3. Semmelweis University – Faculty of Medicine (8. and 8.) – tie
  4. University of Szeged – Faculty of Humanities (2. and 30.)
  5. University of Pécs – Faculty of Humanities (3. and 30.)
  6. University of Debrecen – Faculty of Medicine (14. and 20.)
  7. Pázmány Péter Catholic University – Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (15. and 23.) – tie
  8. University of Szeged – Faculty of Medicine (10. and 28.) – tie
  9. Budapest University of Technology and Economics – Faculty of Natural Sciences (1. and 39.)
  10. University of Pécs – Faculty of Medicine (20. and 24.)

The list is based on student and professor rankings. The creators of the list took into consideration the number of students at the universities, the number and rate of professors with academic degree, the number of students who fall onto professors with academic degree, and the rate of professors with MTA (Hungarian Academy of Science) titles. They also looked into the number of students who chose the university as their first option when applying, the average score of those who were accepted, the number and type of language exams students had, and the number of students who had excellent rankings during their high school years in different competitions.

Student excellence

It is a visible tendency that the aggregated winner is never in the first place concerning student and professor excellency. It turned out that the most excellent students are still at Corvinus University of Budapest on both institutional and faculty levels, even though not many get state scholarship in the field of economic science.

Corvinus is followed by Budapest University of Technology and Economics’ Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, and Eötvös Loránd University’s faculty of Humanities. The analysis points out an interesting tendency: the majority of the most skilled students study at the universities of Budapest.

Professor excellence

When it comes to the excellence of professors, Budapest University of Technology and Economics’ Faculty of Natural Sciences is in the lead, followed by University of Szeged’s Faculty of Humanities and University of Pécs’s Faculty of Humanities.

Photo: www.trubadurmagazin.hu

Copy editor: bm

Three Hungarian university faculties on the world ranking

According to index.hu, Budapest University of Technology and Economics’ faculty of mechanical engineering, Eötvös Lóránd Science University’s physicist training and Semmelweis University’s medical faculty were chosen as part of the list ranking the world’s best university trainings. The National Taiwan University Ranking (NTU) lists the world’s 300-300 best trainings with outstanding scientific achievements by specialization.

In the specialization of engineering, Budapest University of Technology and Economics’ faculty of mechanical engineering is in the 258th place, the physicist training of Eötvös Lóránd Science University finished in the 268th place, while Semmelweis University’s medical training was ranked in the 278th place in medical specialization.

The ranking evaluates the achievements of universities by the published scientific articles. They take into consideration the number of quality articles, the number of references, the h-index showing the citation impact of researchers and the most-cited articles. Since the ranking is fully made by the analysation of these publications, the result indicates the scientific research that goes on in the institutions from the aspect of research productivity, the effect of research results and research excellency, which have a significant effect on the quality of the training.

[button link=”https://dailynewshungary.com/this-is-how-many-points-you-need-to-get-admitted-to-hungarian-universities/” type=”big” newwindow=”yes”] THIS IS HOW MANY POINTS YOU NEED TO GET ADMITTED TO HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITIES [/button]

Except for the University of Ljubljana and Budapest University of Technology and Economics’ faculty of mechanical engineering, no other neighbouring technological universities are listed, including the universities of Vienna and Bratislava. If we look further, then we see that there’s no Czech or Italian institution among the best engineering trainings. The Hungarian university passed institutions like the University of Pittsburgh, University of Edinburgh, University of Kaiserslautern and Trinity College Dublin.

The top three universities on the ranking, that summarises all specializations, are Harvard, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Besides the University of Toronto (4th) and Oxford (5th), only American universities made it into the top ten. There’s no Hungarian university on the summarised Top 300 list. However, out of our neighbouring countries, six Austrian universities, the University of Ljubljana and the University of Belgrade are part of the Top 300.

Photo: www.kth.bme.hu – Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Copy editor: bm

The most profitable Hungary-related company acquisitions in 2016

Hungary Christmas money

The Forbes business magazine has compiled an exit list about the most profitable Hungary-related company acquisitions in its October issue. There are two media companies on the list, while the largest sum was paid for a successful Hungarian startup, vg.hu reported.

Forbes estimates that video streaming service provider Ustream, which was acquired by IBM, was sold for HUF 36.4 billion (EUR 120 million), occupying first position on the exit list.

Acquired by buyout investor Mid Europa Partners for no less than HUF 32.4 billion (EUR 106 million), the second highest amount was paid for transportation company Waberer’s International Zrt.

The third largest exit was the selling of commercial television channel TV2. The two members of the management team, Yvonne Dederick and Zsolt Simon, sold the company for HUF 19.6 billion (EUR 64 million).

The fifth largest exit in 2016 is related to the selling of Class FM commercial radio station, which was acquired for an estimated amount of HUF 3.5 billion (EUR 11.5 million) by Sláger Rádió Zrt.

The tenth place on the exit list is occupied by online vacation rental marketplace Szállás.hu, which was acquired by OTP Bank and its private equity arm Portfolion Zrt. for an estimated amount of HUF 2 billion (EUR 6.6 million).

edited by Gábor Hajnal

Coface lists sixty-nine Hungarian companies among CEE Top 500

Daily News Hungary

The Coface credit insurer has published its latest study about the 500 largest Central and Eastern European (CEE) companies and revealed that they considerably increased their turnover and revenue in 2015. There are three Hungarian companies among the top ten companies ranked: General Electric Hungary, MOL and Audi Hungary.

According to the study, the top 500 CEE companies increased their turnover by 4.2 % to nearly EUR 593 billion, making EUR 26.9 billion profit last year.

Hungary represents itself with sixty-nine companies, which is four less than last year; however the “remaining Hungarian giants reported the highest turnover growth (13.8 %) of all countries”, the study reveals.

General Electric Hungary rose to 2nd place and reported a 188.5 % increase in its turnover, MOL moved down to 3rd place as its turnover decreased by 13.9 %, while Audi Hungary increased its turnover by 12.4 % and currently occupies 7th place.

“The shining new star this year is General Electric Hungary which soared in the ranking from 13th place right into the Top 3, where it finished as the new number 2. The company almost quadrupled its revenues following the integration of Alstom’s power generation and grid in 2015”, writes the study.

It has also been revealed that although the performance of the largest Hungarian companies were again very good, the country moved down from 2nd to 3rd in international comparison.

Furthermore, Coface forecasts only a 2.0 % GDP growth in Hungary this year, which will be slower than the 2.9 % achieved in 2015 “due to the decrease in absorption of EU funds”.

Read the COFACE’s ranking HERE.

edited by Gábor Hajnal

Hungary ranked 33rd in global innovation

Daily News Hungary

Budapest, August 17 (MTI) – Hungary has improved its position in the global innovation index compiled by the United Nation’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), ranking in 33rd, up two places.

Among Visegrad countries only the Czech Republic in 27th place beat Hungary in the 2016 index of 128 countries. Hungary’s overall score was 44.7 this year as against 43 last year.

WIPO assesses indicators such as the political, regulatory and business environment, human resources, education and infrastructure.

For the sixth time in a row, Switzerland remained top of the list, followed by Sweden, the UK, the US, Finland and Singapore. Yemen was considered the least innovative country this year.

[button link=”http://www.wipo.int/econ_stat/en/economics/gii/” type=”big” color=”green” newwindow=”yes”] Release of the Global Innovation Index 2016 [/button]

Hungary rise to 19th in latest FIFA rankings

FIFA have released their first rankings list since this summer’s European Championship and it features Hungary in an elevated position of joint 19th, a one-place improvement on the last list released at the start of June. Bernd Storck’s team had slipped two places from 18th in May but have now gained one spot thanks to the results reached in France and are joined in 19th by Turkey on 915 points.

There are no changes in the first five places of FIFA’s newest list with Argentina in the lead ahead of Belgium, Colombia, Germany and Chile. Winners of Euro 2016 and one of Hungary’s group-stage opponents Portugal move up to 6th while our fellow tournament participants and forthcoming World Cup qualifying opponents Switzerland fall to 18th.

As for our other World Cup qualifying rivals, Latvia are 109th, the Faroe Islands are 136th and Andorra are 203rd.

The top of the July rankings list (last month’s ranking in brackets):

1. (1.) Argentina 1585 points
2. (2.) Belgium 1401
3. (3.) Colombia 1331
4. (4.) Germany 1319
5. (5.) Chile 1316
6. (8.) Portugal 1266
7. (17.) France 1189
8. (6.) Spain 1165
9. (7.) Brazil 1156
10. (12.) Italy 1155
11. (26.) Wales 1137
12. (9.) Uruguay 1130
13. (11.) England 1107
14. (16.) Mexico 1044
15. (27.) Croatia 1022
16. (27.) Poland 1011
17. (13.) Ecuador 1002
18. (15.) Switzerland 957
19. (18.) Turkey 915
19. (20.) Hungary 915

Photo: MTI

Hungarian companies are on the list of the 5000 most successful companies

Daily News Hungary

Index.hu reports that a company of Chinese owners operating in Hungary is among Europe’s most quickly growing companies. Based on the increase of the turnover between 2011 and 2014 Inc., an American magazine, compiled a list of the 5000 most successful companies of the continent, on which the Setino Hungary Kft. can be found.

Setino Hungary Kft., a wholesaler and online store of children’s clothing, was ranked as the 51st of the continent’s 5000 most successful companies because, in three years’ time (2011-2014), the company, operated by two Chinese entrepreneurs: Zhou Jing Jing and Wang Huan, managed to increase their turnover by 953%.

According to the firm’s report, their turnover was 3.5 billion HUF in 2014, whereas it was ‘only’ 334 million HUF in 2011. Besides, the company’s profit was 278 million HUF last year, which was built up majorly from export.

Yet, Setino Hungary is not the only Hungarian company on the list: the T-Trans Főép Kft., whose turnover grew from 200 million HUF to 3 and then 6 billion HUF within a few years, won the 55th position.

The firm deals with constructions and was supported by public funds, as they have reconstructed buildings of NAV (National Tax and Customs Administrations), MVM (Hungarian Electricity Ltd.) and councils. Furthermore, they have also worked on projects supported by the EU.

Additionally, the General Transport Company Kft. is also on the list, within the best 100. The company is responsible for transportation and operates refrigerator cars. They increased their turnover from 183 million HUF to 1.6 billion HUF by 2014, though, it decreased by 300 million HUF last year.

At the 894th position another company from Hungary can be found: the Duna Aszfalt. Altogether 280 Hungarian firms made it to the list, however, it shall be noted that the compilation was based on application; during the process Inc. did not analyse all the companies of the continent.

Copy editor: bm

 

Hungary rise to all-time high in FIFA rankings

Hungary men’s national team has again risen to an all-time high in the FIFA World rankings by appearing in 18th position on 925 points in the April list, one place higher than in recent months.

One of Hungary’s rivals in European Championship Group F, Iceland, also improved their ranking by moving up three places to 35th, while the other two teams in the group dropped one place each, Portgual from 7th to 8th and Austria from 10th to 11th. Forthcoming friendly opponents Germany drop from 4th to 5th while Ivory Coast rise from 36th to 34th.

The updated FIFA rankings (previous month’s position in brackets):

1.(2.) Argentina 1532 points
2.(1.) Belgium 1352
3.(5.) Chile 1348
4.(8.) Colombia 1337
5.(4.) Germany 1309
6.(3.) Spain 1277
7.(6.) Brazil 1251
8.(7.) Portugal 1184
9.(11.) Uruguay 1158
…11.(10.) Austria 1067
…18.(19.) Hungary 925
…34.(36.) Ivory Coast 738
…35.(38.) Iceland 741

Liszt Academy of Music ranked 30th top university for performing arts

Budapest (MTI) – The Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest has been ranked the 30th top university for performing arts, the latest list released by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings showed.

The 2016 global report was the first survey by QS assessing universities for performing arts, the Liszt Academy of Music said on Tuesday.

International students from more than 40 countries represent some 20 percent of the academy’s students. Two-thirds of its courses are also available in English and the teachers are active participants in the international music scene, it said.

The Liszt Academy of Music was the only Hungarian institution included in the QS World University Rankings for performing arts.

Photo: MTI

Hungary is not a happy country

Vs.hu writes that according to the results of a new survey, Hungary is in the middle field when it comes to happiness, while Denmark is in the first place.

The survey was carried out by Columbia University’s Earth Institute. This is the 2016 edition of their World Happiness Report that they’ve been doing since 2012. They set up a ranking of the countries according to their level of happiness. They took income per person, life expectancy in health and the rate of social support and corruption as basis to rank 157 countries of the world. Hungary finished in the 91st place.

It also turned out that the top ten countries’ composition hasen’t changed in the last year. Last year’s winner Switzerland fell to the 2nd place, while the 3rd place was given to Iceland. You can also find Norway, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden among the ten happiest countries. Israel finished in the 11th place and it is followed by Austria, the USA, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico.

According to vs.hu, we can find Hungary at the end of the middle field in the company of countries like Morocco in the 90th place, Pakistan in the 92nd place and Greece in the 99th place. The latter belongs to those countries, on the side of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that fell back the most, compared to last year’s level of happiness. On the other hand, Germany moved forward ten places, since it finished in the 16th place, whereas it was only the 26th last year.

You’ll find the tiny East African country, Burundi, at the end of the list, which was passed by Syria, Afghanistan and the West African Togo and Benin. Out of the last 30 countries only 5 are not African: Bulgaria, Haiti and Cambodia besides the previously mentioned Syria and Afghanistan. This year’s report leaned on data collected between 2013 and 2015.

Jeffrey Sachs, the president of Earth Institute, said at the survey’s presentation in Rome on Wednesday that it would be all countries’ task to make their own report of the happiness and well-being of their nation.

The researchers also added that there are only five countries in the world where they created an individual minister quarter responsible for the happiness of the country. These are Bhutan, Ecuador, Scotland, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

Copy editor: bm