Taiwan's Business Environment Ranks 19th Worldwide: EIU

Taipei, Oct. 21, 2005 (CENS)--In an evaluation for business environment over the next five years by the Economist Information Unit (EIU), Taiwan ranks 19th place worldwide, trailing only Singapore at the third place and Hong Kong at the sixth place in Asia.

In the just released report, EIU gives Taiwan a score of 8.1 points for its business-environment outlook for the 2005-2009 period, higher than 7.33 for the past five year (2000-2004). The top 10 in the evaluation are, in descending order, Denmark, Canada, Singapore, the U.S., Finland, Hong Kong, Holland, the U.K., Switzerland, and Ireland. China ranks 42nd place, behind the Philippines and Thailand. The evaluation covers 60 nations.

Of the 10 indices in the evaluation, Taiwan performs best in the index of economic environment, ranking seventh place worldwide, up seven notches from the previous evaluation. Another bright spot is the labor market index, for which Taiwan also ranks seventh place, for an advance of six notches.

Taiwan performs worst for the indices of political environment and taxation policy, ranking 23rd and eight places, respectively, down two and five notches.

Of the 11 sub-indices for the political environment, Taiwan obtains low scores for international conflict and strain (two points), policy making and execution (three points), corruption (three points), quality of bureaucracy (four points).

For the index of taxation policy, Taiwan scores four points for corporate tax burden, individual income tax, employee's social security tax, financial regime for encouragement of investment, and consistency and fairness of taxation system.

EIU forecasts that Taiwan's economy will grow 3.7% this year and the average economic growth rate for next five years will reach 4.4%. Investments in manufacturing industry and services will continue to grow in the next five years and unemployment rate will be lower than the past five years. Inflation will stand at 1.5% and average 1.4% during the 2005-2009 period.