MANILA, Philippines–The Philippines climbed two notches to 76th out of the 143 economies assessed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for the Global Information Technology Report 2015 as the country continued to show improvements in terms of leveraging the benefits of information and communications technologies (ICT).
The Philippines ranked 78th out of the 148 economies studied in 2014 and 86th out of 144 countries in 2013, data from the report’s Networked Readiness Index (NRI) showed.
The Global Information Technology Report 2015 assesses the preparedness of an economy to fully leverage ICT in terms of ICT infrastructure, cost of access and the presence of the necessary skills to ensure an optimal use; uptake and use of ICT among governments, business and individuals; business and innovation environment, and the political and regulatory framework, and the economic and social impacts accruing from ICT usage.
The report used four sub-indices—Environment (political and regulatory, and business and innovation); Readiness (in terms of infrastructure, affordability and skills); Usage (individual, business and government), and Impact (economic and social). Within these subindices are 10 subcategories [or pillars] and 53 individual indicators.
Of the four subindices, the Philippines got the highest ranking in the Impact subindex where it placed 62nd. The Philippines also ranked 74th in terms of usage, 84th in terms of the environment and 85th in readiness.
Of the different indicators, the Philippines showed marked performance in terms of quality of management schools, where the country ranked 40th out of 143 economies, quality of educational system (29th), adult literacy rate (40th), use of virtual social networks (25th), capacity for innovation (30th) and impact of ICTs on new organizational models (40th place).
Globally, Singapore topped the overall ranking of network-ready countries in 2015, bumping Finland to second place. Third was Sweden, followed by Netherlands (4th), Norway (5th), Switzerland (6th), United States (7th), United Kingdom (8th), Luxembourg (9th) and Japan (10th).–Amy R. Remo