By SIMON COLLINS
New Zealand punches above its weight in a "technology achievement index" produced by the United Nations.
The index ranks New Zealand 15th in the world, just making it into the group of 18 technology "leaders" and ahead of much bigger countries such as France, Italy and Israel.
New Zealand comes third on one of the eight elements used to compile the index, average years of schooling, and fifth on computer systems permanently connected to the internet.
But the country is dragged down overall by factors such as the low number of tertiary students in mathematics, science and engineering, and especially our meagre high-tech exports.
New Zealand's lowest ranking is on high- and medium-technology exports as a proportion of total exports. We are 59th, with 15.4 per cent.
Surprisingly, New Zealand is also well down the list in the number of telephones, with only 720 for every 1000 people. The leader, Norway, has 1329 phones for every 1000 people. Ten other countries also have more phones than people.
Finland tops the overall technology achievement index, coming second on internet connections after tiny Iceland, and first on tertiary students studying maths, science and engineering - 27.4 per cent of the tertiary age group, compared with just 13.1 per cent in New Zealand.
The United States is second overall, followed by Sweden, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Britain, Canada, Australia and Singapore.
Sweden, Britain and the Netherlands all earn more per person than the United States in royalties and licence fees.
Japan and South Korea are way ahead of all other countries in the number of patents granted each year: 994 for every million people.
The United States is third with 289 patents per million people, and New Zealand 12th with 103.
The new index is included in this year's Human Development Report, by the UN.
This ranks NZ 22nd in gross domestic product per person and 19th on a broader "human development index", which includes educational and health indicators as well as GDP.
Links
United Nations Development Programme
NZ outranks some big hitters in tech index
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