Taiwan has risen two spots to sixth place in this year's IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, outperforming 63 of the 69 economies surveyed.
Taiwan also retained its position as the world's most competitive economy among economies with populations of more than 20 million for the fifth consecutive year, said the annual report released today by the Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD).
The index takes into consideration four factors — economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure — each of which have five sub-factors based on different criteria.
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Taiwan's overall improvement in the rankings was attributed to a significant jump in the economic performance category, in which it moved up 16 spots to 10th position, the report said.
Taiwan continued to fare well in the other three categories, moving up two spots to fourth in business efficiency, and maintaining its eighth spot in government efficiency and 10th position in infrastructure.
Taiwan's jump in economic performance was largely due to its jump from 13th to fourth position in the "domestic economy" sub-factor.
That, in turn, was driven by indicators such as real GDP growth per capita, in which Taiwan rose 28 spots to fourth globally, reaching 4.68 percent.
In the international trade sub-factor, Taiwan climbed from 48th to 30th, bolstered by growth in goods exports, in which it ranked eighth with an increase of 9.72 percent, and services exports, in which it placed 28th with an increase of 8.95 percent.
The report cited challenges Taiwan would face in this year, which it said were provided by the National Development Council.
Among them were the nation's need to "deepen international cooperation to enhance strategic positioning in the global value chain," "diversify export markets ... to strengthen economic resilience" and "integrate AI [artificial intelligence] with industries to enhance productivity and competitiveness."
The council said the government would continue to use the IMD ranking as a reference for policy reform, particularly in the face of global uncertainties such as the US' tariff policies.
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