TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan retained its rank as the ninth most competitive digital economy in the world by the Swiss business school Institute for Management Development (IMD).
In IMD's World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, Taiwan placed ninth out of 67 countries and regions. In Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth, trailing only Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong.
The IMD ranking looked at three major factors, nine sub-factors, and 59 criteria to measure "the extent to which countries adopt and explore digital technologies leading to transformation in government practices, business models, and society in general." Among the three major factors measured for the ranking, Taiwan placed seventh in technology, sixth in future readiness, and 19th in knowledge.
Taiwan ranked among the top three in the world in six indicators. It ranked first in “IT & media stock market capitalization.”
Among the three factors, the “knowledge” aspect is mainly used to evaluate a country or region's ability “to discover, understand and build new technologies.” Taiwan ranked the best in this aspect, sixth in the world, up one place from 2023.
IMD said Taiwan continues to show strengths in the subfactors of “training and education” (seventh), “capital” (third), “technological frameworks” (third), and business agility “fourth.” At the indicator level, Taiwan rose to 10th for “management of cities and 11th in "venture capital."
IMD noted Taiwan ranked third in “educational assessment PISA - math," “higher education attainment," "total expenditure on R&D," and “high-tech exports.” It ranked second for “total R&D personnel per capita” and “agility of companies.”