Taiwan’s economy ranked 4th freest in 2024 economic freedom index

　The Heritage Foundation, the American conservative think tank, released the “2024 Index of Economic Freedom” on February 26, 2024.  In the Foundation’s report, Taiwan ranked 4^th among the 184 countries assessed, lagging behind only Singapore, Switzerland, and Ireland, in that order, and came in second among the assessed economies of the Asia-Pacific region.  As to the other Asian countries, Korea, Japan, and China each finished 14_^th, 38^th, and 151^st.  

  According to the National Development Council of Taiwan, countries around the world have been facing numerous long-term structural challenges posed by the COVID pandemic, inflation, Russia’s sustained invasion of Ukraine, the rivalries among the Middle East countries, and other geopolitical tensions.  As a result of the foregoing global challenges, the global average score for economic freedom fell to 58.6 from 59.3 in the previous year, marking the lowest level since 2001.  Under such a circumstance, Taiwan has still maintained its status as a “free” country (scoring 80 or above) for the third consecutive year and continued to be rated as one of the top scorers with an overall score of 80 even though the score dropped from 80.7 in the 2023 index.  

　The Council’s analysis pointed out that Taiwan was marked as “free” (a score range of 80-100) in 7 out of 12 sub-factors; the 7 sub-factors are “judicial effectiveness” (scoring 94), “government spending” (scoring 90.5), “fiscal health” (scoring 90.3), “trade freedom” (scoring 86.4), “business freedom” (scoring 84.9), “property rights” (scoring 82.2), and “monetary freedom” (scoring 80.1).  

　Among these sub-factors, Taiwan scored highly in the sub-factor of “judicial effectiveness” from 70.1 in 2020 to 94 in 2024.  The over 20 points improvement reflects Taiwan’s best performance in this sub-factor for the past four years and also highlights the Taiwan Judicial Yuan’s judicial effectiveness reform in recent years that has won international recognition. 

　Notably, Taiwan had successfully implemented numerous legal reforms, which is fully reflected in Taiwan’s high scores in the sub-factors of “trade freedom” (scoring 86.4), “business freedom” (scoring 84.9), and “property rights” (scoring 82.2).  Taiwan’s high scores in these sub-factors are attributable to, for example, the signing of the first agreement under the “U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21^st-Century Trade” for U.S.-Taiwan economic and trade cooperation, the amendment to the Taiwan Patent Act for corresponding to the implementation of drug patent linkage, the amendment to the Taiwan Trademark Act for introducing the acceleration mechanism for  trademark applications examination, the amendment to the Commodity Labeling Act for increasing the flexibility of labeling to keep pace with technological developments, and the amendment to Business Mergers and Acquisitions Act for creating a more favorable tax environment for corporate mergers and acquisitions of startups, etc..  

　In response to this economic freedom survey, the Council emphasized that the Taiwan government will continue remaining attentive to global developments, deal with any crises and turn them into opportunities with innovative technologies, resilient strategies, and the spirit of economic liberalization, create a better investment environment, and promote corporate innovation linkages, so as to enhance the international competitiveness of Taiwan’s industries.  (Released 2024.02.27)  
/CCS