Taiwan has been ranked the 22nd-most prosperous country in the world on this year’s Legatum Prosperity Index, falling two spots from last year due largely to drops in personal freedom.
Taiwan slipped from 31st in the world for governance last year to 33rd this year, and from 27th for personal freedoms to 31st.
The UK-based Legatum Institute’s assessment official Nathan Gamester said that Taiwan should focus on improving government transparency to boost its performance, but added that the country has improved overall in the past five years.
The nation’s economic growth has moved up 10 spots to 16th place since 2009, which the institute attributes to gross domestic savings, confidence in financial institutions, satisfaction with living standards and decreases in non-performing loans.
The last time the country ranked 22nd was 2010, after which it climbed to 20th place for two consecutive years.
In this year’s ranking, Taiwan came in sixth in the Asia-Pacific region, following New Zealand (fifth overall), Australia (seventh), Singapore (18th), Hong Kong (19th) and Japan (21st).
The highest sub-index was safety and security, ranking ninth worldwide, which was an increase of two places since last year.
In Asia, it ranks below only Hong Kong. It stayed in the top 10 for education, 22nd in entrepreneurship and opportunity, and 25th in health.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
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