## 2 Materials and Methods
### Construction of Indicator System
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Overall** & **Primary Indicator** & **Secondary** & **Tertiary Indicator** & **Weight** & **Nature** \\ \hline \multirow{8}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} Core Competitiveness \\ \(A\) \\ (0.6694) \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{8}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} Economic Level \\ \(A1\) \\ \end{tabular} } & GDP \(X1\)/USD & 0.0542 & + \\  & & Industrial added value \(X2\)/\% & 0.0192 & + \\  & & Value added of service industry & 0.0115 & + \\  & & Goods export \(X4\)/USD & 0.0581 & + \\ \cline{2-5}  & & Science and Engineering & & \\  & & Indicators \(X5\) & 0.0745 & + \\  & & R\&D expenditure as a percentage & & \\  & & of GDP \(X6\)/\% & 0.1472 & + \\  & & Technological Level & R\&D researchers \(X7\)/million & \\  & & \(A2\) & people\({}^{-1}\) & 0.0739 & + \\  & & High-tech exports \(X8\)/USD & 0.1595 & + \\  & & Patent application number & 0.0926 & + \\  & & & \(X9\)/piece & & \\ \cline{2-5}  & & & Domestic listed companies \(X10\)/ & 0.0854 & + \\  & & Total reserves \(X11\)/USD & 0.1160 & + \\  & & Annual inflation rate \(X12\)/\% & 0.0056 & \(-\) \\  & & \(A3\) & Total stock trading volume as a percentage of GDP \(X13\)/\% & 0.1021 & + \\ \cline{2-5} Country & & & Railway (total kilometers) & \\ \cline{2-5} Home & & & \(X14\)/km & 0.1234 & + \\  & & Air transport volume \(X15\)/person & 0.1571 & + \\ Competition & & Financial Strength & Container terminal throughput & 0.1733 & + \\  & & \(B1\) & Power consumption & & \\  & & \(X17\)/\(k\)Wh-person\({}^{-1}\) & 0.1631 & + \\ Force & Basic Competitiveness & & Energy usage \(X18\)/kg & 0.1271 & + \\  & (0.2244) & oil-person\({}^{-1}\) & & \\ \cline{2-5} \(N\) & & Total public expenditure on & & \\  & & education as a percentage of GDP & 0.0497 & + \\  & & Quality of Residents & \(X19\)/\% & & \\  & & Secondary school enrollment rate & & \\  & & \(X20\)/\% & 0.0587 & + \\  & & University enrollment rate \(X21\)/\% & 0.0992 & + \\  & & Adult literacy rate \(X22\)/\% & 0.0484 & + \\ \hline \multirow{8}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} Auxiliary \\ Competitiveness \\ (0.1062) \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{8}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} Government Revelue as a percentage of GDP \(X23\)/\% \\ \(C1\) \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{8}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} Government Revelue as a percentage of GDP \(X24\)/\% \\ Central government debt as a percentage of GDP \(X25\)/\% \\ \(C\) \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{8}{*}{\
\begin{tabular}{c} 0.1309 \\ 0.0970 \\ 0.0671 \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{8}{*}{
\begin{tabular}{c} + \\ \(+\) \\ \(+\) \\ \end{tabular} } \\  & & Urbanization rate \(X22\)/\% & 0.0671 & \(-\) \\  & & Employment rate of population & 0.1013 & + \\  & & aged 15 and above \(X27\)/\% & & \\ \cline{2-5}  & & GDP per capita \(X28\)/US & & \\  & & dollar-person\({}^{-1}\) & 0.3077 & + \\ Living Environment & Health care expenditure as a percentage of GDP \(X29\)/\% & 0.0964 & + \\  & & Gini coefficient \(X30\) & 0.0887 & \(-\) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Comprehensive Evaluation System of African French-speaking Countries’ Competitiveness. The 30 indicators were selected from 52 candidate indicators in the WEF (2018), IMD (2020), and UNCTAD databases through four steps [43]. First, a theoretical relevance test was conducted to match the indicators with the three primary dimensions and exclude indicators that were not related to core competitiveness, such as the cultural diversity index, which was excluded due to the lack of theoretical correlation with economic performance; second, data availability screening was conducted to exclude indicators with a missing rate of more than 30% in 26 African French-speaking countries from 2010 to 2020 to ensure time continuity [25].