Taiwan is the world’s 14th most competitive economy this year. That’s according to the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Competitiveness Report, out on Wednesday.
The annual report examines the competitiveness of economies around the world and offers detailed analysis of performance in three key areas or sub-indices. Taiwan, called “Chinese Taipei” in the report, advanced one place in the rankings from last year. Taiwan’s position in 14th place puts it high up in the rankings compared to many of its Asian neighbors. In Asia, only Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong outperformed Taiwan in this year’s report.
Taiwan’s performance in the sub-index “Basic requirements” has remained largely unchanged from previous years. This sub-index looks at elements such as health, education, and infrastructure. However, Taiwan slipped one place in the sub-index “Efficiency enhancers”, which looks at higher education, market size, and the efficiency of the labor and goods markets. Taiwan also fell one place in “Innovation and sophistication factors”.
The National Development Council says that Taiwan is the only major Asian economy besides India to make progress in this year’s rankings. The council says it will examine areas where Taiwan has fallen behind when formulating policy in order to maintain Taiwan’s competitiveness.