Innovative region: Taiwan
Taiwan – whose territories encompass the islands of Formosa, Pescadores, Quemoy and Matsu, among others – ranked fourth among the most innovative economies in 2019, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitive Report, after Germany, the US and Switzerland and ahead of Sweden, South Korea, Japan, the UK, France and the Netherlands.
Although Taiwan is not part of the World Health Organisation (WHO) due to its intricate relationship with China, it has been largely unaffected by the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. The main island is about 160 kilometres off the southeast coast of China, where the outbreak first emerged but, at the time of writing, the country’s Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Centres for Disease Control has recorded seven deaths and 55 locally transmitted cases in a population of nearly 24 million.
As early as December 2019, before the WHO had confirmed human-to-human transmission, Taiwan…
