The focus of government industrial and technology policy, of course, should not be simply be directed at improving numerical ratings, but ratings of the "Networked Readiness Index" and its individual components drawn up by the WEF in its Global Information Technology Report can be of use in highlighting key areas for future improvement. Generally speaking, last year Taiwan improved its rating in the overall "Networked Readiness Index" of the WEF's "Global Information Technology Report 2004-05" to 15th among 104 countries from 17th among 102 countries in 2003.
Taiwan's most outstanding aspects include the spread of broadband Internet connections to 3.75 million households, just shy of the 3.8 million target, and up from 3.04 million the previous year.
Moreover, Taiwan's NRI improvement was founded mainly on a jump from 17th to fourth in terms of "Readiness" and an improvement from 22nd to 11th in "Usage," despite a drop from eighth to 23rd in terms of "Environment."
The gain in "Readiness" included improvement from 17th to 11th in "individual readiness," from 19th to 18th in "enterprise readiness," and from 12th to third in "government readiness," a gain that reflects the efforts of the DPP administration to promote "e-government" capabilities.
Moreover, while "individual usage" remained at 27th in the rankings, "enterprise usage" rose from 21st to 11th and "government usage" upgraded from sixth to fifth to spur the improvement in the "Usage" category.
Taiwan ranked in the top 10 in 14 key indices, including categories such as the state of cluster development (second), government ICT procurement policies and support for enterprise research and development (third), ISP cost burden capability, prevalence of foreign technology licensing, government success in ICT promotion and inter-cluster cooperation (fourth).
The main black spot on Taiwan's ICT ratings for 2004 involved the overall "Environment," in which its rating plunged from eighth to 23rd.
Although Taiwan's "market environment" ranked seventh, its "government and legal environment" was ranked a disappointing 27th while its "infrastructure environment" was rated only 37th. In terms of infrastructure, Taiwan ranked poorly in the number of secure ISP servers (29), the number of telephone mainlines (37) and internet server availability (40, based on 2003 data).
The government is trying to address these problems by working to expand broadband access to six million households by 2008 and enhance the first phase of the "e-Taiwan" plan focused on the building of an ICT infrastructure and spread of government online services into a second "user-oriented" phase aimed at deepening of the usage of Taiwan's ICT and enhancing the mobility of e-services. But the most serious drags are evidently related to the overall political environment, notably the quality of ICT-related laws (21), intellectual property protection laws (24), judicial independence (39) and, worst of all, legislative efficiency (41).
The last index clearly reflects the damage wrought by the deadlock between the DPP-led Executive branch and the conservative opposition Kuomintang-People First Party controlled Legislative Yuan and the "scorched earth" strategy adopted by the pan-blue camp to oppose virtually any reforms proposed by the DPP government.
Other key issues revealed by the WEF report include the relative absence of Taiwan ICT companies in "the higher value-added links of the value chain," as noted by Lin Feng-ching, former director of the Institute for Information Industry and now a minister without portfolio in the DPP Cabinet, in his case study on Taiwan's ICT industry in the WEF report.
Lin noted that "the value activities that have been the province of Taiwanese makers," including design verification testing, production verification testing, process improvement, global logistic, channel management and after-sales service, "are progressively being absorbed into China."
As a result, the value-added of Taiwan's information and communications industry is declining, in large part due to the migration of its core competencies to the People's Republic of China and the apparent inability of Taiwan's public and private sector ICT players to widen the technology gap through more investment in innovation and research and development.
On the passive side, the government yesterday took a step to enhance "effective management" of the technology drain by sending to the Legislative Yuan a draft law for the protection of sensitive technologies.
If approved, the law promises to introduce a procedure to identify "sensitive technologies" and related products and services based on review by a commission of industry, professional experts, academia and government officials and stiffen protection of technology based on the principles of protecting sensitive science and technology, enhancing Taiwan's technology competitiveness and ensuring "national security" and "public interest."
Besides stiffening penalties for infringement or unauthorized export or dissemination of specific "sensitive technologies," the draft law would also consider "synergy" effects among key advanced technologies and grouped services and management knowhow. But the government needs to take active measures to promote cooperation to boost innovation and research and development of new information and communications technologies.
Moreover, the government should coordinate efforts to improve ICT infrastructure and allow our citizens to make full use of the advanced ICT technology developed by Taiwan companies.
Recently, Premier Frank Hsieh instructed the Government Information Office to coordinate upgrading of TV transmission frequencies and standards so that households can use the most advanced TFT-LCD screens.
Similarly, the government needs to spur the extension of the extension of asymmetric digital subscriber line transmission networks to ensure that the vast majority of Taiwan households have broadband Internet access.
Such measures will help promote a vibrant and sophisticated domestic market opportunities for ICT products and services.
But these efforts may be in vain if the political deadlock cannot be resolved. Given the current balance of power in the Legislative Yuan, hopes for improvement may rest with intensified pressure from the private sector, including enterprises, employee organizations, civic groups and ordinary citizens for the passage of draft constitutional amendments for structural legislative reform.
Quelle: eTaiwan News, 14.04.2005
