Taiwan moved up to 11th in the 2015 IMD World Competitiveness Rankings
According to the “2015 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook” from Institute for Management Development (IMD), Taiwan was ranked No.11 out of the 61 evaluated countries, improving by 2 positions as compared to the previous year. In the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan was ranked No.3, following only Hong Kong and Singapore.
Amongst the four main factors of the IMD competitiveness ranking, Taiwan’s “Government Efficiency” in 2015 has attained the best ranking as the 9th in the world, improving by 3 positions as compared to the previous year; “Economic Performance” and “Business Efficiency” also improved by 3 positions, where as “Infrastructure” was slightly down by 1 position.
I. Changes of the Rankings in Four Main Factors
(I) “Economic Performance”: Improved from 14th of the previous year to the 11th
Amongst the sub-factors of the main factor “Economic Performance” , the rankings for “Domestic Economy”, “International Investment” and “Employment” were improved, while “International Trade” remained the same, with “Prices” as the only one that went down.
(II) “Government Efficiency”: Ranked No.9, the best out of the four main factors
The ranking of “Government Efficiency” has improved by 3 positions as compared to last year, the rankings for sub-factors “Public Finance”, “Institutional Framework”, “Business Legislation” and “Social Framework” were improved, where as “Fiscal Policy” maintained the predominance of No.4 in the world.
(III) “Business Efficiency”: Improved from 17th of the previous year to 14th
The sub-factor “Attitudes and Values” has improved by 4 positions, making it the key factor for the 3-position improvement of “Business Efficiency”. It is worth to be alert since the ranking of “Labor Market” has already moved down for 4 consecutive years. There were no significant changes to “Productivity”, “Finance” and “Management Practice”.
(IV) “Infrastructure”: Ranking was about the same to the previous year
The ranking for this main factor went down by 1 position as compared to the previous year, making it the 3rd successive year of decline. The sub-factor “Basic Infrastructure” and “Technological Infrastructure” moved downward, where as “Health and Environment” and “Education” went up slightly, with “Scientific Infrastructure” remaining the same.
II. Taiwan’s Competitive Strengths
IMD evaluation items comprise 4 main factors, 20 sub-factors, and 342 criteria, amongst these, statistical data and survey data each represent a weight of 2/3 and 1/3 relatively. The targets of the survey were senior business leaders, nationals or expatriates, who are working for domestic and foreign enterprises.
IMD evaluated the competitive strengths for Taiwan, including:
(I) Diversified economy with resilience, maintaining current account surplus in international payments; relative low tax burden, abundant foreign exchange reserves, and relative low cost of capital.
(II) Small and medium enterprises featuring efficiency and flexibility, overall enterprises featuring productivity, large stock market capitalization with excellent fund-raising function, abundant bank assets and easy corporate lending, and vibrant entrepreneurship and outstanding adaptability to changes.
(III) A lower rate of dependent population as compared to other countries, brilliant hardware or software in technological infrastructure, including: broadband tariffs, hi-tech product exportation, number of patents for inventions, R&D population as well as R&D expenditures, population with higher education, and high school students’ mathematics and sciences assessment.