MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

L A countries losing ground on the global scene

With the exception of Chile, most Latin American countries are losing ground with respect to other parts of the world in the race to turn information and communications technologies into powerful engines of growth and improved competitiveness.

Chile aside, the region as a whole suffers from a poor legal framework for the development of the ICT sector, heavy administrative burdens, low levels of government prioritization for ICT development, low Internet penetration rates, and pervasive brain drain, which undermines the potential for faster growth of the economies' ICT sectors.

Most countries have thus seen an erosion in their relative ranks within the 104 economies covered. Argentina, for example, fell 26 places to 76.

The report places Singapore as the best performer worldwide in a number of categories quality of maths and science education, affordability of telephone connection charges, and government prioritization and procurement of ICT - and gets extremely high scores in other areas, such as affordability of Internet access.

By contrast, the United States drops to number 5 in the ranking, following a three-year reign at the top. However, the loss in rank is less due to actual erosion in performance with respect to its past history and more to continuing improvements by its competitors. (World Economic Forum)