Taiwan Ranks the 6th in Asia in Economic Freedom

       According to the ranking in the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom published by the U.S. Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, Taiwan is the fifth in economic freedom in Asia, after Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. (Taiwan is actually the sixth on the list, but Australia and New Zealand both have a ranking of 3; see attached table.) This puts Taiwan in the “mostly free” category.

The report points out that in 2005 Taiwan scored an average of 2.38 (a score of 1 indicates most free, 5 least free) in the 10 evaluation items: trade policy, fiscal burden, government intervention, monetary policy, foreign investment, banking and finance, wages and prices, property rights, regulation, and informal market. Compared with the 2005 index, Taiwan’s score advanced by 0.5 points in the trade policy item and 0.1 points in the fiscal burden item, to 2 and 3.3 points, respectively. In the banking and finance item, Taiwan was down 1 point, however, bringing its overall score down by 0.04 points.

Economic Freedom in Asia, 2004 - 2006

　

Country	2006		2005		2004
	Score	Asia Ranking	Score	Asia Ranking	Score	Asia Ranking
Hong Kong	1.28	1	1.35	1	1.34	1
Singapore	1.56	2	1.60	2	1.61	2
New Zealand	1,84	3	1.70	3	1.70	3
Australia	1.84	3	1.79	4	1.88	4
Japan	2.26	5	2.46	6	2.53	6
Taiwan	2.38	6	2.29	5	2.43	5
South Korea	2.63	7	2.64	7	2.69	7
China	3.34	11	3.46	17	3.64	20

Note: Lower scores indicate less economic intervention and higher economic freedom.

Source: www.heritage.org/research/features/index

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