Innovation lifts Taiwan to 14th in global competitiveness

2016/09/30

Taiwan moved up one spot to 14th in the Global Competitiveness Report released Sept. 28 by World Economic Forum, with the country outperforming in the innovation pillar of the annual survey conducted by the Geneva-based nonprofit foundation since 2006.

Its score of 5.28, the same as last year, saw Taiwan finish ahead of regional neighbors such as South Korea at 26th and mainland China at 28th, but behind Japan at eighth and Hong Kong at ninth. The top three places in the annual survey of 138 economies worldwide went to Switzerland, Singapore and the U.S. in that order.

Although Taiwan tallied its highest ranking of 11th in the pillar of innovation, it finished 17th overall in the subindex of innovation and sophistication factors. Taiwan achieved 16th and 14th, respectively, in the subindexes of efficiency enhancers and basic requirements.

Of the 12 pillars used by the WEF to gauge an economy, Taiwan ranked between 11th and 30th, with its strongest performances in innovation, infrastructure and macroeconomic environment, and weakest in institutions and technological readiness.

Further breakdown of data contained in the report’s three subindexes and 12 pillars show Taiwan among the top 10 in 10 of 114 factors. These include fixed-telephone lines, second; financing through the local equity market and state of cluster development, both third; and degree of customer orientation, fourth.

Taiwan made great strides in areas like ease of access to loans, up 21 spots to fifth; financial services meeting business needs, up 10 to 14th; government debt, up 10 to 46th; and quality of the education system, up 16 to 30th.

The WEF also identified three areas for improvement when it comes to doing business in Taiwan: policy instability, insufficient capacity to innovate and inefficient government bureaucracy.

Taiwan was the only major economy besides India in Asia that improved its ranking this year. The country finished 15th, 14th and 12th in 2015, 2014 and 2013, respectively.

In response to the report, the National Development Council said the government is committed to redressing Taiwan’s weaknesses and will continue rolling out corresponding policy measures to ensure the country advances in global competitiveness.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=248232&ctNode=2194&mp=9)