Taiwan ranked 10th globally in the World Digital Competitiveness Ranking released yesterday by the Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD).
The ranking assessed 69 economies on their ability to adapt to, explore and benefit from digital transformation, based on three key factors — “knowledge,” “technology” and “future readiness” — comprising nine subfactors and 61 ranked criteria.
Among the three key factors, Taiwan performed best in future readiness, rising three places to third globally, while it was 11th in technology (down four places) and 16th in knowledge (up three places).
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA
Taiwan ranked first globally in the “IT and media stock market capitalization” ranked criteria within the technology factor.
It was second in the “total R&D [research and development] personnel per capita” criteria and “total expenditure on R&D” as a percentage of GDP criteria, both in the knowledge factor, and was also second in “agility of companies” (future readiness).
Taiwan was third in “higher education attainment” and “educational assessment PISA-math,” both in the knowledge factor.
PISA is the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment.
It was also third in “opportunities and threats” in business agility and “use of big data analytics,” both in the future readiness factor.
In Taipei, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said the results show that Taiwan has a solid foundation for the development of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry and the nation’s digital transformation.
Taiwan’s progress in future readiness reflects the competitiveness of local enterprises, as well as the government’s achievements in public-private collaboration and data privacy protection, the ministry said.
It would continue to work with other agencies to refine laws and issue guidelines to improve AI governance, and raise Taiwan’s international visibility in digital policy and innovation, it said.
Switzerland (first), the US (second) and Singapore (third) were the top three digitally savvy nations, the IMD report said.
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