India stands no. 44 in global IT competitiveness!!

HELSINKI: The United States continued to lead the global IT industry competitiveness ranking in an annual survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, followed by Finland, Sweden and Canada. India stands at the 44th spot in global IT competitiveness index. The prominence of Finland, Sweden, Canada and the Netherlands in the index's top tier was helped most by their robust IT infrastructure and strong support for technology research and development, the survey said.

An improving R&D environment and also human capital helped lift China's ranking to 39th and Russia's to 38th.

The IT Industry Competitiveness Index of 66 countries assesses and compares the quality of the local technology infrastructure, the availability and quality of IT talent, the innovation environment, the legal regime, the business environment, and government technology policies, the EIU said.

Following are the rankings of the top 16 countries and some selected IT industry hubs. Last year's ranking in brackets:

1 UNITED STATES (1)

2 FINLAND (13)

3 SWEDEN (4)

4 CANADA (6)

5 NETHERLANDS (10)

6 BRITAIN (3)

7 AUSTRALIA (7)

8 DENMARK (5)

9 SINGAPORE (9)

10 NORWAY (14)

11 IRELAND (15)