In the latest ranking by Swiss business school IMD, Singapore lost the top spot and dropped to second place in a digital competitiveness ranking of 63 economies, pipped by the United States in a move up from third place last year.
However, Singapore topped the knowledge and technology categories but came in only 15th for future-readiness.
Despite its digital-friendly environment and high levels of training and education, Singapore society's attitude towards the adoption of technologies and the agility of businesses here to transform digitally scored relatively low, coming in at 20th and 18th place respectively, said the report.
Singapore remained the only Asian country to crack the top 10, with closest rival Hong Kong falling to 11th place from seventh last year.
In general, few Southeast Asian countries listed also showed a slight improvement in overall scores as compared to the previous year, as detailed below:
According to the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Center’s report, this year, the majority (29) of countries in the study showed an improvement in their level of digital competitiveness, but Southeast Asian nations, such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, recorded a decline.
“Results show that several countries are experiencing an ‘adaptive imbalance’ or a mismatch between high levels of training and education, and the attitudes towards embracing digitalisation; among these economies, we note Austria, Malaysia and Russia,” said the report.
The overall ranking was based on three factors: knowledge, technology and future readiness.
This year, 29 countries in the study saw an improvement in their level of digital competitiveness. About 40 per cent, or 26 countries, showed a decline while only eight economies remained in the same position.
The IMD World Competitiveness Center is a research group at IMD business school in Switzerland with 30 years of research expertise in the field of country competitiveness.
Source : Free Malaysia Today and The Straits Times
