The Gulf countries continue to feature prominently in this year's Networked Readiness Index Ranking (NRI), with five in the top 40. Bahrain (#27) ranked first, followed by Qatar (#28), United Arab Emirates (#30), Saudi Arabia (#34) and Oman (#40). This reflects the information technology sector's increasing prominence in national agendas as a crucial instrument for global competitiveness, economic diversification, enhanced efficiency, and modernization. In the 11th annual Global Information Technology Report released Friday by INSEAD, the leading international business school, and the World Economic Forum released the 11th annual Global Information Technology Report, it said four Nordic countries are among the 10 most successful at leveraging ICT in their competitiveness strategies, with Sweden topping the list at #1. Singapore is in the #2 position. Other countries in the top ten are: Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The Saudi Arabian government has recognized the importance of ICT as a key driver of its economic transformation. A committed and strong government effort (5th) to prioritize ICT (14th) coupled with a very favorable environment for business development has yielded fairly good results to get the country ready for ICT revolution, especially in terms of infrastructure development (36th). "However, boosting higher levels of competition to reduce the costs of communications (85th) and improving the skill base by reducing adult illiteracy (98th) and increasing tertiary education participation (65th) should be the immediate priorities to further boost the uptake of ICT in the country," said Bruno Lanvin, Executive Director of INSEAD's eLab. "Although many would consider that the phrase 'digital divide' is passé, GITR data shows that it remains a stubborn reality: in spite of the spectacular global spread of mobile telephony, poorer countries (especially in Africa) still suffer from a lack of infrastructure and connectivity. The advent of accelerating transformations in the way we generate, transmit, store, share and use data bears both the promise of new opportunities to bridge that digital divide and the threat of deeper ones in areas such as broadband, cloud computing, social media or big data," warns Lanvin, adding, "these are issues that countries need to be aware of, and for which appropriate policies will need to be designed as a matter of urgency." "Over the past 10 years, the information and communication technology industry has changed dramatically and its effects are increasingly transforming our economies and societies", said Soumitra Dutta, Roland Berger Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD, co-editor of the report. "Echoing the rapid changes and consequences of living in a hyperconnected world, the framework we use to monitor, measure, and benchmark the deployment and impacts of ICT has evolved", Dutta said.
