US 8
China 51
India 69
Pakistan 102
Bangladesh 113
GITR 2012 - Data Platform | World Economic Forum - GITR 2012 - Data Platform
KARACHI:
Pakistans ranking dropped 14 places to 102 in a year out of the 142 countries in the Global Information Technology Report 2012 of the World Economic Forum with most pillars deteriorating.
The ranking shows the governments lack of efficiency and poor governance, reads a statement released by WEFs local partner Mishal Pakistan.
The report indicates challenges and opportunities on 10 different pillars, where Pakistan has not been able to show any remarkable improvements in the previous year.
The only positive from the report was that Pakistan stood the fourth cheapest mobile cellular tariffs, showing the cut-throat competition in the telecom sector.
Cellular tariffs came under affordability in the ten pillars which had an impressive rank of 26 among the total 142 countries.
Pakistan lost its competitive advantage on the fixed broadband internet tariffs, where it dropped the ranking to 79 in from 36. The extent of information and communications technologies improving access for all citizens to basic services health, education, financial services also took a dip to 113, falling back 30 places from last year.
Pakistan also improved its competitiveness in certain areas including, efficiency of the legal system in challenging regulations, where Pakistan improved from 95 in 2011 to 79 in 2012 out of 142 countries. The judicial independence was also highlighted as one of the advantages in Pakistan.
The quality of education system and the capacity for innovation also shows improvement of 7 points each ranking at 79 and 51, respectively.
Sweden stood (1st) and Singapore (2nd) top the rankings in this years report in leveraging information and communications technologies to boost country competitiveness. Switzerland (5th), the Netherlands (6th), the United States (8th), Canada (9th) and the United Kingdom (10th) also show strong performances in the top 10.
Despite efforts over the past decade to develop information and communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure in developing economies, a new digital divide in terms of ICT impacts persists, sums up the report.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 5th, 2012.
Global IT ranking: Pakistan drops 14 places in a year The Express Tribune