Taiwan Ranks 8th Place in Global Competitiveness: IMD

Taipei, May 18, 2010 (CENS)--Taiwan scores a remarkable showing in 2010 global competitiveness rankings compiled by the Switzerland-based IMD (International Institute for Management Development," with its ranking jumping to eighth place, the highest for it ever, from 2009's 23rd place, making it the economy with the largest advancement in the ranking among 58 economies covered by the IMD report.

Taiwan owes its outstanding showing to major improvement in business competitiveness and government efficiency, scoring third place and 6th place, respectively, in the two indicators, with its ranking for business competitiveness trailing only Singapore and Hong Kong.

In general, Asian economies perform noticeably in the ranking, with Singapore and Hong Kong standing at first and second place, respectively, for the first time ever, dethroning the U.S., which slips to third place. The difference among the three economies, however, is very small, as all of them score 100 to 99 points in the evaluation.

The IMD report notes that Australia, Malaysia, and Taiwan all benefit from the strong demand of the Asian market and perform remarkably in government efficiency, which is conducive to economic development, with Taiwan's ranking in government efficiency advancing 12 notches, Malaysia 10 notches (to ninth place), and Australia four notches (to fourth place).

The IMD report points out that global competitiveness ranking undergoes a major reshuffle in 2010, mirroring major changes in global economic growth, exchange rates, and financial assets over the past year, and performance in the rankings of various economies mainly reflect their resilience for "damage control" in the face of those changes, rather than their capability to enhance their competitive efficiency.

China ranks 18th place, the highest among the BRIC economies, compared with India at 31st place, Brazil at 38 place, and Russia at 51st place.

With Greek credit crisis impacting the global financial market, the IMD report probes the debt issue of various economies for the first time, measuring the time they need to lower their government debts to sustainable level.

Japan has the most serious debt problem and will not be able to cut its debt level to less than 60% of GDP until 2084, followed by Italy, which will not see its debt level drop to the sustainable level until 2060, and Portugal and Greece, both which will continue to be plagued by the problem until 2030. The risk of default for both Japan and Italy, however, is low, since most of their debts are held by domestic creditors.