Taiwan ranked second in a German think tank’s evaluation of 128 developing and transitional economies in terms of quality of democracy, market economy and political management, according to this year’s Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index (BTI) released on Friday.
On a scale of one to 10, with 10 points being a perfect score, Taiwan received 9.54 points, coming behind the Czech Republic, which had 9.61 points, according to the index, which is published on a bi-annual basis.
Described as having a vital civil society, Taiwan was highly evaluated in the fields of democratic integration and market institutionalization, the BTI report indicated.
The report concluded that Taiwan is a country with a prosperous economy, stable political system, free and open elections and freedom of the press and speech. It praised the government for its administrative efficiency, high capability in crisis management and respect for the law.
The transformation index measures successes and setbacks on a country’s path toward a democracy based on the rule of law and a market economy anchored in principles of social justice.
In-depth country reports provide the qualitative data used to assess the countries’ development status and challenges and to evaluate the ability of policymakers to carry out consistent and targeted reforms, the report said.
Rounding out the top 10 countries in this year’s index are Slovenia (9.45), Uruguay (9.3), Estonia (9.28), Poland (9.05), Lithuania (9.03), Slovakia (8.88), Chile (8.87) and Costa Rica (8.84).
Bertelsmann Stiftung is a private foundation that functions as a think tank and an organization devoted to the promotion of social change.
According to its Web site, the BTI is the first cross-national comparative index that uses self-collected data to measure the quality of governance and provide a comprehensive analysis of countries’ policymaking success during the process of economic transition.
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