Croatia has moved ten positions up on the list since 2003, achieving the best results in the categories of the quality of mathematical and scientific education (37th position) and the quality of public schools (41st position), and the poorest results in the administrative loads category (98th position) and accessibility to venture capital (91st position).
The report says that governments, companies and households in Nordic countries readily use new technologies, with Iceland ranking second, Finland third, Denmark fourth and Sweden sixth. These countries also show a high level of technological innovations.
Among the top 20 countries are Switzerland, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria and France, while Italy registered substantially poorer results than last year because of unfavourable legislation, relatively poor infrastructure, shortcomings in the education system and poor cooperations between the economic sector and universities.
The top position has been taken for the first time by Singapore as an economy that makes the best use of the development of global information and communication technology.
Among the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, Estonia takes the lead at 25th position thanks to its excellent legal regulations. Many of them rank better than large Latin American countries (Estonia, Slovenia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Lithuania are better placed than Brasil, Mexico and Argentina).
According to the report, the high rankings of these countries are the result of an impressive level of direct foreign investment in Central and Eastern Europe in the past decade and comprehensive reforms carried out before their admission to the European Union.