Malaysia ranked 34th in e-readiness

According to the latest e-readiness ranking of the World's largest economies published by Economist Intelligence Unit, Malaysia ranked 34th among 70 countries, up to 2 places from last year. E-readiness is the measure of a country's ability to use information and communication technologies (ICT) to develop its economy and to foster its welfare. It was measured base on...

1. Consumer and business adoption
2. Connectivity and technology infrastructure
3. Business environment
4. Social and cultural environment
5. Government policy and vision
6. Legal environment
   

Among Asian countries, Malaysia is behind Hong Kong (2nd in the World), Singapore (6th), South Korea (15th), Japan (18th) and Taiwan (19th) which are economically more superior than Malaysia. However, Malaysia is ahead of Thailand, India, Philippines, China, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Vietnam and Indonesia. The digital divide between Malaysia and Singapore is too wide and there are still a lot of catchup to do.

Consumer and business adoption is given the most priority when measuring a country's e-readiness. Malaysia scores only 6.60 out of 10 in this area, a huge gap comparing to Singapore. Singapore scores a whooping 9.70, the highest score of all the countries. A high score indicates its people and companies have successfully utilize the digital channel to conduct e-commerce and e-government. Ironically, Malaysia fare pretty well in Business environment. Malaysia score 7.35 in this area, slightly below Japan. We hope that with the favorable business environment that we are taking for granted, other areas especially connectivity and technology infrastructure can improve further to catalyst the growth of e-commerce in Malaysia.