India ranks 48th in the world in the 2008 IT industry competi-tiveness index,
moving two places from its 2007 ranking of 46 in the index. These are among the
findings of a new study issued by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and
sponsored by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).
The study, now in its second year, assesses and compares the information
technology (IT) industry environments of 66 countries to determine the extent to
which they enable IT sector competitiveness. Although the top 20 economies
remain the same from one year ago, nine countries moved up and 11 went down in
the rankings. Three new additions in the top five are new are: Taiwan, Sweden
and Denmark. The top five countries in order of ranking in Asia Pacific are
Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore and Japan, respectively.
"This year's index shows that a country's IT competitiveness rankings can
fluctuate on the index very rapidly," said Keshav Dhakad, Chairman, BSA India
Committee. "The government has made progress, however there is still a greater
need to develop a stronger legal and R&D environment; complemented with a better
IT infrastructure to help Indian firms become more competitive and leaders in
the technology space. The recent evolutionary trends in the domestic IT industry
towards product development for both national and international markets are very
encouraging and healthy. It is clear that the demand for IPR, government support
and robust infrastructure will only grow as India makes inroads into the world
product market to become greater than a billion dollar industry within less than
a decade. India cannot afford to lose this opportunity," he added.
"There is a strong link between the presence of IT competitiveness enablers
and the strength of local technology economies," confirmed Denis McCauley,
Director, Global Technology Research with the Economist Intelligence Unit.
"Governments and industry leaders must pay close attention to these factors if
they want to reap the benefits of a globally competitive IT industry," he added.