Taiwan has been ranked 16th out of 63 nations in global digital competitiveness by the Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD) for this year, four places lower than last year.
Taiwan was fifth among economies in the Asia-Pacific region, behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and South Korea, but ahead of Japan, China and Thailand, according to the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2018 published on Tuesday.
The US overtook Singapore as the world’s most digitally competitive economy, while the city-state fell to second place, followed by Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland.
The rankings measure economies using 50 indicators in three categories: knowledge, technology and future readiness.
Taiwan was ranked 19th in technology, 11th in knowledge and 22nd in future readiness.
Responding to the nation’s four-place fall, the National Development Council said that, as Taiwan is not a member of the UN, many international institutions that compile world rankings have difficulty collecting official statistics and the ranking does not necessarily reflect the real situation.
Citing the indicator for “smartphone possession” under the sub-factor of “adaptive attitudes” in the future readiness category as an example, the council said that the ranking dropped from last year’s fifth place to 27th this year, adding that the ranking represents a huge difference from the public perception of smartphone possession in Taiwan.
After contacting IMD, the council learned that the figure for smartphone possession in Taiwan at 70.2 percent was given to the IMD by Euromonitor International Ltd, a privately owned company that provides global business intelligence and strategic market analysis.
However, there is a huge difference between the data provided by Euromonitor and the National Communications Commission, the agency responsible for regulating the development of the communications and information industry, which puts the figure at 89.48 percent, the council said.
The council said that it has sent a letter to IMD asking for the figure to be corrected.
Despite significant differences between some data and the real situation in Taiwan, the rankings still highlight the nation’s strength in digital capabilities, with Taiwan ranked among the three most competitive economies in five areas.
Taiwan came first in “total R&D [research and development] personnel per capita,” second in “mobile broadband subscribers” and “IT and media stock market capitalization,” and third in “educational assessment in math” and “high-tech exports,” the rankings showed.
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