Taiwan's economic competitiveness continued to decline over the past year, with poor scores in terms of institutional infrastructure, causing the country to slide to 13th place this year in the World Economic Forum's annual rankings, down from eighth place last year.
The nation's ranking also fell from being the second-most competitive economy in Asia last year to fourth place this year, after Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong, according to a poll released yesterday.
The poll was conducted for the 27th consecutive year, but only for the second year using a new formula, the forum said.
While Taiwan fared well in terms of innovation and higher education, and performed modestly in the category for public health services and macroeconomics, poor institutional infrastructure held the country back, the forum said.
South Korea also saw its ranking drop five places, to 24th this year from 19th place last year, the poll showed.
The US lost its position as the world's most competitive economy to Switzerland as budget and trade deficits prompted a slide to sixth in the rankings.
Switzerland jumped from fourth place last year and Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Singapore all overtook the US with Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK rounding out the top 10 in the poll.
In terms of emerging markets, China dropped six places from last year to 54th.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS