Sri Lanka has improved its position by two places in the recently published Global Network Readiness Index (NRI) which measures a nation's or community's degree of preparation, to participate in and benefit from ICT developments.

The NRI featured in the Global Information Technology Report (GITR) 2013, published by the World Economic Forum, establishes an international framework by which the performance in networked readiness of a large number of economies/countries can be assessed and benchmarked against one another over a period of time.

With the two-place improvement, Sri Lanka at 69th place out of 144 countries.

Sri Lanka and India are the only two countries in the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) group to rank higher than the 100th mark. Other SAARC members are below the 100th mark of the NRI with Pakistan down by three at 105th, Bangladesh at 114th, and Nepal at126th.

Sri Lanka scored very high in the affordability measure with mobile cellular tariffs ranking at 5th place based on purchasing power parity and second for fixed broadband.

Finland reached the top of the NRI rankings for the first time while Singapore remained 2nd overall, slightly improving its score.

The United Kingdom climbed up three notches, placing at 7th and posting the biggest rank improvement among the top 10 economies while the United States slipped to 9th place, its worst showing since the start of the ranking in 2001.

The Global Information Technology Report is accessible at:

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GITR_Report_2013.pdf