Portugal jumps 3 places in World ITC Use Ranking

Portugal also rose two places in this ranking among the 25 European Union countries, moving from 15th to 13th, ahead of Spain, which dropped two places. This document is drafted every year by this private institution based in Geneva. It rates the United States first, ahead of Singapore, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Canada, Taiwan, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, in this classification of 115 countries.

“Nowadays, ICT are one of the most important drivers in increasing efficiency and productivity in the frenetic world economy”, said Augusto López-Claros, one of the Forum’s directors and the document’s co-author.

Among the European Union countries, the United Kingdom is followed by the Netherlands (12), Germany (17), Austria (18), Ireland (20), France (22), Estonia (23), Belgium (25), Luxemburg (26), Portugal (27), Malta (30), Spain (31), Czech Republic (32) and Cyprus (33).

Poland comes last in the 25, in 52nd position, after Lithuania (44), Greece (43), Italy (42), Hungary (38) and Slovenia (35), with Estonia at the front of the Eastern European countries. 
The Nordic countries perform best of the European countries, with Denmark third, followed by Iceland (4), Finland (5) and Sweden (8).

The reason behind this, according to a World Economic Forum press release, is that these countries marry “leading school establishments that are highly innovation-orientated” with “a high degree of new technology ownership”, both by the government, companies and civil society.

The United States, which had dropped to fifth place last year, wrested pole position from Singapore. This is the third time in five years it has held this position "thanks to the excellence of its higher education system and extension of the field of cooperation between research institutes and the business world”, the press release states.

Although Singapore has dropped to second, Asian countries are still performing well, as is Taiwan’s case, jumping eight places to seventh, ahead of Hong Kong (11), South Korea (14) and Japan (16). India remained in 40th position and China fell five places to 50th. The best Latin American country is Chile (29), followed by Brazil (52) and Mexico (55). Compared to last year’s widespread downwards trend, the region performed in a more varied manner last year. Several countries improved their position, namely Chile (up 6 places), Mexico (up 5), El Salvador (up 11), Columbia (up 4) and Argentina (up 5), whereas others have moved down, such as Brazil, which fell six places.

While South Africa fell three places from 34 to 37, it is still the best sub-Saharan African country for ICT, followed by Mauritius (45) and Botswana (56).

In other markets, Israel (19) is the best performer in the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates (28) top the Gulf region and Tunisia (28) lies at the head of the North African countries. CM.