Analytics, EU – Baltic States, Technology

Latvia placed 33rd among the states surveyed by EIU regarding competitiveness of the IT sector, which means that Latvia has climbed up one notch from last year. The other two Baltic countries are ahead of Latvia – Estonia moved up one place to 23rd from 24th a year earlier; Lithuania jumped four notches up – from 35th position last year to 31st in 2009.

Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, Singapore and Norway were also included in TOP10 of the list, writes Reuters/LETA.

Finland has leaped forward from 13th place last year to second position now. This was achieved mainly by successful performance in research and development field, patent registrations and improvement of the business environment.

Taiwan in its turn registered the steepest decline in IT competitiveness and stayed 13th this year, compared with second place in EIU list last year.

The situation in IT sector is the worst in Iran, Nigeria and Algeria.

It is the third time that EIU compiled the annual survey on IT sector competitiveness in 66 countries of the world; the survey was commissioned by "Business Software Alliance".

In the survey, IT sector competitiveness in each country was assessed taking in consideration the following criteria: overall business environment, IT infrastructure, human resources, legislation, research and development and support to IT sector development.

Latvia's indexes were the best in such categories as human resources (22nd highest place) and business environment (28th place); Latvia received worse assessments of support provided to IT sector development (43rd among all countries) and research and development (39th place).