Morocco gains ten places in ICT ranking of ITU

Morocco has gained ten places in the information and communication technology (ICT) ranking of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), jumping from the 111th place in 2002 to the 101st in 2007 from.

    Morocco's ICT Development Index (IDI) improved from 1.37 to 2.34 in 2007 to rank 101st among 154 counties, ITU said in its report "Measuring the Information Society", released on Monday in Geneva.

   The North African country, where ICTs have witnessed a boom in the last five years, registered the best gain in points in Africa after the Mauritius, the report noted.

   It also underlined that Morocco ranked first among Maghreb countries (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) in terms of access to ICTs, a sub-index that includes the penetration rate of land and mobile phones, the internet bandwidth, the number of households having a PC and of those having internet connection. 

   Morocco's points in this sub-index grew from 1.64 in 2002 to 3.03 in 2007, the report added.

   The ITU index combines 11 indicators into a single measure that can be used as a benchmarking tool globally, regionally and at the country level, the Union says on its website. These indicators are related to ICT access, use and skills, such as households with a computer, the number of Internet users and literacy levels.

   Besides eastern Europe, which features "one of the highest IDI value gains," the report also cites Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Macao (China), Japan, Italy and France as economies that have significantly improved their ICT levels.

   The first place of the ranking was held by Sweden, which was followed by Southern Korea and Denmark.

MAP