Taipei, April 18 (CNA) Taiwan ranked eighth among 46 trade areas around the world in the latest survey on trade competitiveness that was conducted by the Imports and Exports Association of Taipei, advancing one notch from last year.

The progress was attributed to Taiwan's improvement in four out of five indicators for the 2012 Survey on Global Trade Environments in Key and Emerging Markets, which was released Wednesday.

In the five indexes, which cover national competitiveness, trade liberalization, trade convenience, trade obstacle and trade risk, Taiwan recorded a fall in the national competitiveness ranking from 14th in 2011 to 15th this year, but advanced in all other four rankings.

Overall, Taiwan's trade competitiveness lagged behind Singapore (1st) and Hong Kong (4th) among four Asian Tigers, but was ahead of China (22nd) and South Korea (23rd), according to the survey.

In the annual study, the top 10 trade areas in the overall trade competitiveness ranking are Singapore, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Britain, the United States, Germany, Taiwan, France and Japan in that order.

The Taiwanese traders association began in 2009 the survey on Taiwanese businesses that are scattered in developed and emerging economies around the world, to produce reliable information and data of market risk, business opportunities and a global trade trend for the reference of Taiwanese traders and the government in their global deployment.

The 2012 survey indicates that the last 10 of 46 trade areas on the overall trade competitiveness ranking are Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Egypt, Bahrain, the Philippines, Argentina, Nigeria and Kuwait, with Iran in the last place.

A total of 2,116 valid questionnaires were collected for the survey.

(By Lin Meng-ju and Elizabeth Hsu)
enditem/sc