Knowledge economy preparedness 19th: The World Bank Group

The Knowledge Economy Index 2007 Rankings show that the top four knowledge economies worldwide are Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, in that order.

In Asia, Taiwan is second to Japan, which ranks 17th in the world.

Among other major economies in Asia, Hong Kong ranks 21st, South Korea 27th, Thailand 56th and China 75th. Singapore is not included in the assessment because of unavailability of related data.

Officials from the Council for Economic Planning and Development attributed Taiwan’s strong performance to the government’s efforts to promote the knowledge economy, business branding and economic transformation and upgrading over recent years.

Between 2002 and 2006, Taiwan’s economic growth averaged 4.6 percent,with the contribution of total factor productivity accounting for 43 percent of that growth, the officials said, adding that of the growth in total factor productivity, that of knowledge and technological innovation accounted for 48 percent.

Citing the Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008 released by the World Economic Forum, the officials said Taiwan has performed brilliantly in terms of its innovation competitiveness worldwide.

For example, Taiwan ranks first in terms of the cluster development of businesses, third in terms of the number of utility patents granted to the country and fourth in terms of higher education and training, they noted.

The officials pointed out that during the 2001-2006 period, Taiwan’s middle-to-high technology exports increased at an average annual rate of 13.4 percent, which they said indicates that the quality of Taiwan exports has been improving.

Also, middle-to-high technology products accounted for 71.2 percent of Taiwan’s exports in 2006, up from 67.4 percent in 2001, the officials said.

To assist Taiwan businesses in continuing to transform and upgrade themselves to cope with the trend of economic globalization, the government is promoting value creation by encouraging businesses to develop brand-name value and boosting the development of new industries, they said.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos Respond to this email