Australia, Singapore and Sweden top Technological Readiness Ranking

Friday, 08 June, 2018

Australia, Singapore and Sweden top The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) new Technological Readiness Ranking for 2018–22. In 2013–17 the top-scoring countries were Finland and Sweden. The US and France will join the top 10 in 2018–22; Libya and Angola will retain the lowest positions.

The breakdown of scores shows that the Netherlands has the best e-commerce offering, the UK has exemplary e-government services and Taiwan is the world leader for cybersecurity.

The top-scoring countries in the Online Service Index of e-government are Australia, Singapore, UK and Canada, closely followed by South Korea, New Zealand, Finland and France. One of the main drivers of e-government strategies, for instance in the Asia–Pacific region, is the desire to reduce corruption.

The top-scoring countries on the metric for cybersecurity preparedness include Australia, Singapore, Canada and the US.

In the report, released on 5 June, spending on e-government, cybersecurity and a robust e-commerce environment will increasingly be seen as a policy priority across the world, with government investment driving a broad-based improvement in countries’ tech-readiness over the next five years.

The report builds on the EIU’s long-running Business Environment Ranking, which measures the attractiveness of 82 of the world’s largest economies as investment locations. The EIU’s new ranking focuses on how future-oriented these 82 business environments are. It assesses eight indicators across three categories:

Access to the internet, which looks at internet usage and mobile phone subscriptions
Digital economy infrastructure, looking at e-commerce, e-government and cybersecurity
Openness to innovation, exploring international patents, research and development (R&D) spending, and research infrastructure.

Emily Mansfield, Country Forecast Director at The Economist Intelligence Unit, said: “Technological change is inescapable, and how well prepared governments, businesses and individuals are for disruption is increasingly important. The US will climb sharply in our ranking in the coming years as internet access improves, and will remain the world leader for innovation clusters and new patents. Meanwhile the UK’s position will decline, reflecting comparatively low R&D spending — a key contributor to productivity growth — and inadequate investment in cybersecurity.”