Luxembourg Ranked Third Worldwide in Annual ITIF Innovation, Competitiveness Report

Also, Luxembourg Ranks Sixth in List of Countries Making Progress in Innovation

Luxembourg has been ranked third worldwide in overall innovation and competitiveness in the annual survey completed by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Luxembourg placed third behind Singapore and Sweden, ahead of Denmark, South Korea, the U.S., Finland, Britain, Japan and the NAFTA region, which includes the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The EU-15, comprising the 15 Western European countries in the European Union, ranked 18th.

To assemble its 2009 rankings, the ITIF, a non-partisan organization based in Washington, used 16 indicators in six key areas: human capital, innovation capacity, entrepreneurship, information technology infrastructure, economic policy factors and economic performance.

Using a set of different criteria to define progress on the 16 key indicators, the ITIF also measured progress in competitiveness and innovation over a decade-long period. From this list China has made the most progress and topped the rankings, while Luxembourg placed sixth, behind Singapore, Lithuania, Estonia, and Denmark. The EU-15 ranked 28th in terms of change since 1999. The U.S. came in 40th place.

Among other innovations that aided its ranking in the ITIF survey, Luxembourg has recently completed a major expansion of its state-of-the-art data center infrastructure, and instituted new, highly-competitive tax regimes that benefit developers of electronic commerce initiatives and intellectual property.

“This study is based on the importance of benchmarking global competitiveness and innovation on a variety of factors, not simply policy factors or economic performance,” said ITIF president Rob Atkinson. “In today’s global economy, it’s important to look at the competitiveness of the United States, Europe, Asia and the rest of the world based on a variety of factors, not just one.”

The ITIF said “if the EU-15 region as a whole continues to improve at this faster rate than the United States, it would surpass the United States in innovation-based competitiveness by 2020.”

Among the list of criteria for improvement are incentives for companies to innovate at home, being open to high-skill immigration, fostering a digital economy, supporting the kinds of institutions that are critical to innovation and ensuring that regulations and other related government policies support innovation. For a complete review of the ITIF report, visit http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=226

For more information about Luxembourg, visit www.bed.public.lu

Contacts

Luxembourg Board of Economic Development
Georges Faber, director, 415-788-0816