Taiwan has risen two spots to sixth place out of 69 major economies in the latest World Competitiveness Ranking report published by the Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD).
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, the annual report released yesterday showed.
The index is based on four factors: economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure — each of which include five subfactors based on different criteria.
Photo: AFP
Taiwan’s overall improvement in the rankings was attributed to a significant rise in the economic performance category, in which it advanced 16 places to 10th.
It remained strong in the other three categories, moving up two spots to fourth in business efficiency, and remaining eighth in government efficiency and 10th in infrastructure.
Taiwan’s rise in the economic performance category was largely the result of its advancement in the “domestic economy” subfactor, in which it surged from 13th to fourth.
That in turn was driven by indicators such as real GDP growth per capita, in which it rose 28 positions to fourth, reaching 4.68 percent.
In the international trade subfactor, Taiwan climbed from 48th to 30th, bolstered by growth in goods exports (ranked eighth, up 9.72 percent) and services exports (28th, up 8.95 percent).
The report also cited challenges Taiwan would face this year, which IMD said were provided by the National Development Council.
These include the 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 using the IMD rankings as a reference for policy reform, particularly in the face of global uncertainties such as Washington’s new tariff policies.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
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