Taipei City’s competitiveness as a financial center ranks 41st in the world, the latest Global Financial Centers Index published on Thursday said. Taipei is included in the ratings for the first time.
The index, which was launched in March 2007 by the Z/Yen Group for the City of London, is updated every six months.
This month’s edition — the fifth in the series — provides ratings for 62 major financial centers around the world, with three new entrants: Taipei, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.
The report says London, just ahead of New York, remains the world’s most competitive financial center. Rounding out the top 10 are Singapore, Hong Kong, Zurich, Geneva, Chicago, Frankfurt, Boston and Dublin.
Among major financial centers in East Asia, Tokyo ranks 15th, down eight notches from the previous index. Shanghai has dropped one place to 35th, Beijing is down four notches to 51st and Seoul has fallen five places to 53rd.
Stuart Fraser, chairman of the Policy and Resources Committee of the City of London, said the latest results reflect the severe loss of confidence across all financial centers in the wake of a series of events, such as the collapse of global financial services firm Lehman Brothers and the effective nationalization by the US government of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
However, Fraser noted that the top-ranked centers have shown a much greater degree of resilience and a smaller drop in scores than those further down the rankings, adding that this may reflect a greater confidence in the ability of long-established centers to weather the global economic crisis.
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