Taiwan's Position in the ETI Rankings Fall Again

Taipei, May 31, 2012 (CENS)-- Taiwan scored 29th on the Enabling Trade Index (ETI) 2012 rankings, said recently the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), citing the statistics from the Enabling Trade Index Report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The CEPD stressed that Taiwan's ranking declined one place from last year despite exceeding South Korea's, so will hold an inter-departmental discussion to review such change in the ranking.

The CEPD noted that the ETI compares nations for market access, border administration, transport and communications infrastructure as well as business environment.

Taiwan's 2012 rankings rose from last year in all the sub-indexes, except for the transport and communications infrastructure, with the best performance in business environment to score advancing from the 31st to the 29th, which mainly resulted from Taiwan's better-than-before performance on regulatory and security environment, continued the CEPD.

Taiwan's increasingly convenient customs and trade network as well as liberalized market enabled the island to move up in rankings in market access and border administration. However, Taiwan's ranking declined from the 125th to the 131st in foreign market access.

CEPD officials noted that foreign market access rating indicates duty reductions availed of a country in export, or the lower the duty the higher the ranking. The U.S., Japan, and South Korea all saw rankings fall under 120th, with Germany, France, and Britain also down to 94th or lower, in contrast to Southeast Asian countries as Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore all ranking among the top-20 in foreign market access.

The 2012 ETI rankings issued by the WEF show Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark, Sweden, and New Zealand ranking in the top-five, Japan 18th, Malaysia 24th, Taiwan 29th, South Korea 34th and China 56th.