Malaysia slips down ICT competitiveness ranking
KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — Malaysia slid from 27th to 28th in the 2010-2011 Global Information Technology report released yesterday after it was bumped down by Qatar which jumped 5 spots from 30th to 25th.
Malaysia’s placing this year is equal to its ranking in 2008-2009 and worse than the 26th ranking achieved in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008.
Sweden and Singapore retained their first and second placing respectively atop the rankings with Finland, Switzerland and the United States rounding out the top 5.
The Global Information Technology report (http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GITR_Report_2011.pdf) is an annual publication prepared by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and INSEAD which assesses the impact of ICT on the development and competitiveness of 138 economies worldwide.
The WEF said that this year’s report confirmed the leadership of the Nordic countries and the Asian Tiger economies in adopting and implementing ICT advances for increased growth and development.
It noted that Sweden, Denmark (7th) and Norway (9th) are all are in the top 10, except for Iceland, which is ranked 16th.
Singapore meanwhile led the Asian Tiger economies with Taiwan and Korea improving five places to 6th and 10th respectively, and Hong Kong SAR following closely at 12th.
A look at the sub-rankings show that Malaysia was helped by government readiness (11th) but hurt by the infrastructure environment (51st) and individual usage (45th).
It was also ranked 42nd for international internet bandwidth and 59th in terms of broadband subscribers.
The ICT rankings come after Malaysia dropped two spots in the WEF competitiveness index last year, coming in 26th out of 132 countries and marking the second year in a row Malaysia has dropped in the rankings after falling from 21st to 24th spot in 2009.
The WEF rankings in coming years however are expected to show how effective are the Najib administration reforms such as the New Economic Model, the Government Transformation Programme and the Economic Transformation Programme, all of which were launched between January and December last year.