Singapore top in 104-nation IT report

March 10, 2005

Singapore is the most successful country in the world at harnessing the internet revolution and new technology while the United States has lost its touch in the field, according to a report issued by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.

The small Asian state ranked top of the Global Information Technology Report, which gave high marks to its technical infrastructure, government policies on information technology, the quality of education and the affordability of telephone and internet services.

Singapore supplanted the United States, which dropped down the annual league table of 104 economies for the first time by five places.

"Singapore is an excellent example of a country that has been able to make, in a relatively short period of time, enormous progress in putting ICT (information and communication technologies) at the service of improved living standards," said report co-author Augusto Claro-Lopez.

The WEF said the United States was largely being overtaken by the better performance of other countries.

Although it is still ranked highly in most sectors, the US economy fell back on several areas relating to the quality of its education system, as well as its administrative burden, or on individual telephone or internet use.

Hong Kong and Japan moved into the top ten, while China and India moved up the ranks to 41st and 39th place.

Other Asian countries were also higly ranked, just outside the top ten, including Australia, which was 11th, Taiwan and New Zealand.

The report underlined that information and communication technology was a vital ingredient for efficiency in an increasingly globalised economy.

Nordic countries - Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden - occupied the second, third, fourth and sixth places respectively, maintaining overall high standards on information and communications technology, public access, education and innovation, according to the report.

New eastern EU members were continuing to take advantage of economic redevelopment to boost their information technology use, the report said.

Estonia ranked 25th and was praised for setting up an "excellent regulatory framework".

Although largely in the top quarter, major west European economies had a mixed record.

Italy notably plummeted from 28th to 45th place - below several African and Latin American countries - in the space of a year, and received the near worst rating - 103rd - for its administrative burden.

The report highlighted a narrowing gap between the most developed and least developed economies.



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