UK nears Top of E-Readiness Chart

The UK has climbed to second place, behind leader Denmark, as the annual "e-readiness ranking" of 64 countries saw former leader Sweden fall to third place. Both Britain and Denmark climbed one place in the rankings over the last year, when measured by the criteria that IBM and the intelligence unit of The Economist use in their annual survey.

In all, Scandinavia now claims four of the top five spots, so the UK's rise is particularly impressive, especially as former level-peggers with Britain, the US and the Netherlands have both fallen behind.

Other interesting findings include:

* Singapore made the greatest jump up the list, going from 12 in 2003 to 7 in 2004.
* Four countries were added to the rankings since 2003: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia. Despite the additions, the bottom-ranked countries in 2003 — Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan — still ranked in the last place positions in 2004.

IBM and the intelligence unit of The Economist defined e-readiness by measurement in six distinct categories: connectivity and technology infrastructure; business environment; consumer and business adoption; social and cultural environment; legal and policy environment; and supporting e-services. In all there are nearly 100 quantitative and qualitative criteria.

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