Australia has a strong, stable and internationally competitive business sector. The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2009 rated Australia's business efficiency as the seventh best in the world.

Based on the assessment of nationals and expatriates participating in the survey, Australia’s business sector has particular strengths in oversight, ethics, values and social responsibility, worker flexibility and openness to global ideas, attracting highly skilled people, and in financial sector regulation and transparency. Australian companies are well equipped to compete internationally.

The business efficiency factor is designed to measure the “extent to which the national environment encourages enterprises to perform in an innovative, profitable and responsible manner”. It takes into account productivity and efficiency, labour costs and characteristics, the performance and global integration of the financial sector, management practices, and general attitudes and values relevant to competitiveness.

In assessing a country’s overall competitiveness, the IMD measures four main factors – business efficiency, economic performance, infrastructure and government efficiency. On the overall competitiveness scoreboard, Australia ranked second for those countries with populations greater than 20 million, behind only the United States, and seventh in the world.