By Tony Waltham
Friday, August 31 2007 02:37 PM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/business/0,39044229,62031689,00.htm

Thailand ranks 41st worldwide and ninth in Asia in a new global survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on IT industry competitiveness, according to Business Software Alliance (BSA) Software Policy director Seow Hiong Goh.

The findings were presented in separate round-table sessions to Thai industry organizations and the media last week, with representatives from the Ministry of ICT, Nectec, NSTDA, the ATCI, Software Park, and Sipa being briefed.

Overall, Asia Pacific countries fared well in the global survey, which looked at the IT industry in 64 countries between November last year and April 2007. Industries in six categories were studied, with each category being further broken down into sub-categories comprising 25 indicators in all.

Each indicator and category was assigned its own "weighting," with the most emphasis being placed on research and development (25% overall), within which the number of patents registered was given the highest importance.

Two of the other five categories were given a 20 percent weighing as being the next most important: IT infrastructure and human capital, while the other three were the business environment (10%), legal environment (10%) and government support for the IT industry (15%).

Japan, with an index of 72.7, came top in Asia, followed by South Korea (67.2), Australia (66.4), Taiwan (65.8), Singapore (63.1), New Zealand (57.5) and Hong Kong (53.4); Thailand in ninth place (31.9) came close behind Malaysia (34.9), but ahead of India (29.1), the Philippines (28.7), China (27.9), Sri Lanka (26.0) and Indonesia (23.7). Vietnam (19.9) was bottom of the chart in the region, and below Pakistan (20.2).

Goh said that although the BSA had sponsored this survey, the EIU had been independent in setting the parameters and in conducting the research and analysis which comprised building the IT industry competitiveness index and conducting interviews with 20 IT executives and experts.

Praising the independence of the EIU, the BSA executive joked that if the BSA could have had its way it would have increased the 10 percent weighting for the legal environment, although he did note that the findings showed that the legal environment in Thailand was the area that needed the most improvement, where Thailand was ranked 57th, its lowest placing among Asia-Pacific nations across the six main categories.

Thailand was best placed for its business environment, where it came in higher than Malaysia, and human capital, where enrollment in tertiary science education was better than in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

But Goh suggested there should be better collaboration between universities and the industry to ensure the relevance of the curriculum, such as was being done in Taiwan.

Another area where Thailand placed badly was for labor production, or hardware and software output per industry employee, which Goh noted was "surprisingly lower than Indonesia and Vietnam."

According to BSA president and CEO Robert Holleyman, IT was a leading driver of economic and social progress worldwide and he noted that "these findings can serve as a roadmap for governments to capitalize on those factors which can strengthen their IT sectors and accelerate the benefits a thriving IT industry can deliver to the entire society."