World Economic Forum’s (WEF) release annual global competitiveness ranking. Japan has ranked 8th out of 138 countries and region, down from the previous year’s sixth. The reason is “Japan’s innovation prowess seems to be eroding”, the WEF said. Other countries of the ranking is not much change, Switzerland is 1st in the competitiveness ranking for the 8 years in a row, 2nd is Singapore, 3rd is United State. United Kingdom is 7th in the ranking, but this ranking was before to leave the EU, so United Kingdom will drop ranking next year.
WEF said that Japan’s innovation prowess was decline, so dropped competitiveness rankings. However, I think that Japan still has technological prowess. It is the “quality” of Japanese technology. In general, Japanese are diligent, skillful and made-in-Japan products are long-lasting and safe. There is a lot of technology that attracts attention in the world. But now, the working population is reducing in Japan because of the aging society, and at the same time, technology developers are also decreasing. In other words, I think that Japan has elements, but there is no one to develop them. Even the population decreases, Japan must think of the way that does not reduce developers.