New Cabinet must also maintain competitiveness

One is to contain the swine flu epidemic from reaching pandemic proportions and another is to complete, as soon as practicable, reconstruction and rehabilitation programs following Taiwan's worst flood disaster in history. The new Cabinet must also restore the people's trust in their government.

A less publicized task is to improve or at least maintain Taiwan's competitiveness.

The just published 2009/2010 World Economic Forum (WEF) league table on national competitiveness ranks Taiwan 12th, up five places from the previous report thanks to a number of factors — stronger company focus on innovation, an increased number of patents, more manufacturing clusters, more emphasis on research and development spending and an increasing number of engineers and scientists.

On the other hand, Taiwan fell in the categories of government debt, national budget deficit, employment opportunities and cost for terminating employment, and these are areas where Taiwan has to improve.

The league table was made before Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan on August 8, before flash floods and landslides killed at least 700 people, and before property damages topped billions of dollars.

For reconstruction and rehabilitation in the year to come, the government has budgeted NT$12 billion, all raised by borrowing. So while the latest ranking is up, Taiwan is in a difficult position to maintain its national competitiveness.

Of course, the WEF ranking is a reference point. Developed countries, including the United States, which was knocked off by Switzerland as the world's most competitive nation in the latest survey, do not attach much importance to the WEF rankings. Some highly ranked nations, like Iceland, have succumbed to the global financial crisis.

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