Hong Kong has overtaken Singapore as Asia's most electronically-savvy economy and is well ahead of Australia, South Korea and Japan, a global business survey showed yesterday.
The annual "e-readiness" rankings by the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit said Hong Kong was tied at sixth place with Finland behind the top five: Denmark, the US, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
Hong Kong vaulted over Singapore, which fell to 11th place, "thanks to innovative development of e-business services, a positive legal and policy environment and advances in mobile services," an EIU statement said.
"For perhaps the first time since the technology bubble burst, the global economy is beginning to feel comfortable in a digital skin," it said. "Spending on information and communications technology (ICT) is growing again with some buoyancy in developed markets."
In the survey for last year, Singapore stood at seventh place and Hong Kong at ninth. Denmark was the topnotcher last year as well.
Scandinavian countries "remain the best in class in key areas of connectivity, such as mobile penetration and Internet use," the EIU said.
Among the other Asia-Pacific economies in the 65-market survey, Australia was at 10th place this year, followed by New Zealand at 16th, South Korea at 18th, Japan at 21st and Taiwan at 22nd.
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