Taiwan ranked third overall out of 129 developing and transitional countries in an index compiled by a German foundation that measures each nation’s performance in terms of political and economic transformation.
Bertelsmann Stiftung’s 2018 Transformation Index, which looks at a nation’s transformation efforts from February 2015 to January last year, found that Taiwan remains a top performer in promoting democratic politics and liberal market policies, the report said.
Taiwan scored second out of the 129 countries in economic transformation and third in political transformation and governance performance, giving it an overall ranking of third.
The scores are derived from a number of criteria, including political and social integration, stability of democratic institutions, rule of law, market organization, currency and price stability, international cooperation and consensus-building.
Overall, the report found that Taiwan “continues to enjoy a high degree of stateness, meaningful elections, the absence of undemocratic veto actors, stable democratic institutions and a vibrant civil society, and does extremely well in guaranteeing its citizens political rights and civil liberties.”
Taiwan remained one of the world’s top 20 economies in terms of macrostability, international competitiveness and market-friendly policies, despite the risks seen by many market actors posed by the nation’s economic dependence on China and concerns over political stability after the 2016 elections, the report added.
The Czech Republic and Estonia ranked first and second respectively in the status index, which is an average of the political and economic transformation scores, while Estonia and Uruguay ranked first and second in the governance index.
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