Taiwan is the second-most innovative economy in Asia, next to Singapore, and ranked 13th among 131 countries globally, a report by the European Business School showed yesterday.
“In less than half a century Taiwan has transformed itself from a simple agricultural society in the earliest stage of development into a global technology powerhouse, a world leader in the production of ICT [information and communication technology] equipment with a supporting infrastructure of science parks and public-private research institutions and think tanks that have played a critical role in turning Taiwan into one of the most prolific innovators in the world,” the report’s editor, Augusto Lopez-Claros, formerly a chief economist and director of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Program, said in a statement yesterday.
Lopez-Claros attributed Taiwan’s success to two factors: doing many of the good things that have also been critical to high growth elsewhere in the world — including taking full advantage of the benefits of international trade and investment and acquiring new technologies — and avoiding the errors that have been such a drag on development in many other countries.
Taiwan’s challenge in the coming years will be to find creative ways to cooperate with China — an emerging technology power in her own right, with a much lower cost structure — and to move closer to the best performers in the innovative capacity index, Lopez-Claros said.
Outperforming Taiwan, Singapore ranked sixth in the world and was lauded for its institutional environment, good governance, the quality of its research and development infrastructure and the high extent to which the latest technologies are in use within the government, the business community and civil society, the report said.
Japan earned a ranking of 15th and would have placed higher were its innovation capacity not undermined by very low scores in indicators used in evaluating public sector management, the report said.
Soaring public debt and an aging population also raise questions about the long-term health of the economy and the extent to which the government could be constrained in its policy options, it said.
Sweden, Finland and the US topped the ranking, followed by Switzerland and the Netherlands.
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