After the test of more than two years of the pandemic, Taiwan’s resilience has been even more affirmed by the world. Whether for important international rankings or various excellent MIT industries and products, in the 14 rankings selected by the Overseas Community Affairs Council, ROC (Taiwan) (OCAC), Taiwan ranks top globally for 25 industries/products, health care index, living environment, and competitiveness of an economy with over 20 million people; also, Taiwan leads in Asia or East Asia for various indexes such as the Democracy Index.
In terms of economic development, Taiwan has been judged to have the best Innovation Capability in the Asia-Pacific region and fourth globally for two years in succession by the World Economic Forum; IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook has ranked Taiwan top for economies with over 20 million people for two years in a row; for the first time, the 2022 Index of Economic Freedom of the Heritage Foundation of the US included Taiwan as a Free Economy, ranking it sixth in the world and third in Asia; also, Taiwan’s steady control of the pandemic, stable economic growth and the government’s innovation along with transformation-oriented development strategy have allowed Taiwan’s economy to grow amidst global economic decline. In September 2020, foreign exchange reserves were US$541.1 billion, fourth in the world.
On the industry front, if products produced overseas are excluded, Taiwan ranks top in the world for high-end bicycles, silicon wafers, wafer foundry, IC testing & packaging and chlorella; including products made by Taiwanese companies overseas, Taiwan is the world’s largest producer of 19 products, namely, functional fabrics, golf club heads, high-end bicycles, circuit boards, mobile device optical lenses, wafer foundry, notebook PCs, desktop PCs, mainboards, ABS,Cable CPE,DSLCPE, IC testing and packaging, IC flip chip substrate, WLAN,PND, chlorella, instant noodles and tea beverages, showing that Taiwan plays a key role in various global supply chains.
In the area of overall development, Taiwan was selected as the best destination for expatriates by InterNations in 2021. Taiwan’s excellent medical system is also the envy of the world and it was named No.1 in the world by Numbeo four years in a row; Taiwan also came top in Asia in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2021 Democracy Index; in Freedom House’s 2022 Freedom in the World survey, Taiwan came second only to Japan in Asia; also, according to the criteria set by the UN 2021/2022 Human Development Report, Taiwan ranked 3rd in Asia based on the indicators of health, education and economy, higher than Japan and South Korea. In the UN’s 2022 World Happiness report, for the fifth year in a row, Taiwan was the happiest country in East Asia (2018-2022).
To allow more people to understand Taiwan’s outstanding performance in various areas in the world, the OCAC has collected important ranking information in various areas and established the Taiwan World Rankings Special Area on its official website. 14 pieces of ranking information have been selected this time. Everyone is welcome to share the information and the good of Taiwan with friends.
