Inbox: New Zealand’s global ICT ranking rises

New Zealand’s rank has climbed to 18th out of 138 economies in the World Economic Forum-INSEAD Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010, up one place from the last report and just behind Australia’s rank of 17th.
The Network Readiness Index (NRI) ranks countries on their readiness and capacity to fully benefit from information and communication technologies that enhance their competiveness and the daily lives of citizens. New Zealand’s index score went up to 5.03 from 4.94 last year.
The New Zealand Institute director Dr Rick Boven says strong commitment to developing ICT and innovation is important because they are crucial for building high-performing, competitive, and resilient economy.
“Establishing high quality networks is foundation for using ICT to build new businesses, improve productivity and gain social benefits. As low cost, high quality networks become ubiquitous it will become even more important to integrate ICT into other important national strategies such as education, health and transport.”
Countries that embrace the need for affordable and ubiquitous national digital networks are more competitive in the global arena, as suggested by the high correlation between broadband penetration and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index.
Three dimensions determine country’s overall readiness: the general business, regulatory and infrastructure environment for ICT; the readiness of the three key societal actors (individuals, businesses and governments) to use and benefit from ICT; and their actual usage of available ICT. These dimensions divide into nine pillars and 71 indicator variables (55 percent from survey data, 45 percent from hard data sources).
New Zealand continues to enjoy an extremely effective political and regulatory environment (third in the world) along with good market environment (16th in the world), but relatively weaker infrastructure environment (19th in the world). Compared with last year, the usage dimension has climbed to 18th from 24th in the world due to improved individual and business usage. New Zealand’s readiness component is relatively weaker, ranking 23rd in the world, although that has improved from last year’s 29th ranking, with improved individual readiness the main contributor to the change. M
New Zealand’s rank has climbed to 18th out of 138 economies in the World Economic Forum-INSEAD Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010, up one place from the last report and just behind Australia’s rank of 17th.
The Network Readiness Index (NRI) ranks countries on their readiness and capacity to fully benefit from information and communication technologies that enhance their competiveness and the daily lives of citizens. New Zealand’s index score went up to 5.03 from 4.94 last year.
The New Zealand Institute director Dr Rick Boven says strong commitment to developing ICT and innovation is important because they are crucial for building high-performing, competitive, and resilient economy.
“Establishing high quality networks is foundation for using ICT to build new businesses, improve productivity and gain social benefits. As low cost, high quality networks become ubiquitous it will become even more important to integrate ICT into other important national strategies such as education, health and transport.”
Countries that embrace the need for affordable and ubiquitous national digital networks are more competitive in the global arena, as suggested by the high correlation between broadband penetration and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index.
Three dimensions determine country’s overall readiness: the general business, regulatory and infrastructure environment for ICT; the readiness of the three key societal actors (individuals, businesses and governments) to use and benefit from ICT; and their actual usage of available ICT. These dimensions divide into nine pillars and 71 indicator variables (55 percent from survey data, 45 percent from hard data sources).
New Zealand continues to enjoy an extremely effective political and regulatory environment (third in the world) along with good market environment (16th in the world), but relatively weaker infrastructure environment (19th in the world). Compared with last year, the usage dimension has climbed to 18th from 24th in the world due to improved individual and business usage. New Zealand’s readiness component is relatively weaker, ranking 23rd in the world, although that has improved from last year’s 29th ranking, with improved individual readiness the main contributor to the change. M