Bermuda's information technology environment is now the 15th best in the world, ahead of the likes of Japan, Germany and Ireland, in the 2007 survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The Island has improved by five places in the listing that measures a country's e-business environment and how amenable a market is to internet-based opportunities.

Bermuda is the only UK Overseas Territory to make the list of 69 countries, and the only other Caribbean region country in the rankings is Jamaica in 46th place.

The rankings are based on a survey that compares six categories relevant to e-readiness.

"This is excellent news for Bermuda and the continued growth of our information communication technology sector. Our improved ranking affirms our strengths as a business and technology jurisdiction and shows that we in Bermuda are indeed raising the bar and incorporating technology into many areas of society including business, health, education, the arts, and e-Government," said Minister of the Environment, Telecommunications and E-Commerce, Neletha Butterfield.

The measurements are not only related to how many computers, broadband connections and cell phones a country has, but also look at how conversant a country's citizens are with the technology, and how transparent is the country's business and legal systems.

Ms Butterfield said: "For next year, we hope to improve our ranking even further. This can be achieved through the continued hard work of the Departments of Telecommunications and E-Commerce that are working on several initiatives including telecommunications regulatory reform, the revamping of the Government portal, as well as community education in ICT."

She added: "We are also in the process of concluding an ICT statistical benchmarking exercise which will give us a good measure of technology use and various skill levels in Bermuda.

"As these statistics have been lacking, this may also have affected our rating. Moving forward, however, not only will these statistics assist with our global ranking but will enable us to identify where the gaps are and where we've made progress."

The study is a joint initiative with the IBM Institute for Business Value, who along with the Economist Intelligence Unit built the rankings model.

"Now that Bermuda's impressive global position has been confirmed over two years, we look forward to working with Government to focus on positively impacting these ratings, and consequently enhancing our international e-readiness status," said Danny Dunlop, IBM Bermuda sales and service manager.

Bermuda scored 8.15 out of 10 in the survey, compared to 7.81 in 2006. The top ranked country Denmark scored 8.88.

In the six categories Bermuda improved its score for connectivity and technology infrastructure and business environment, but had a lower score in the social and cultural environment category — partly explained by the relatively low number of patents registered in Bermuda.

The Island scored particularly highly in the legal environment category, which measures effectiveness of traditional legal framework; laws covering the internet; level of censorship and ease of registering a new business. Bermuda was third behind Hong Kong and Australia.

The remaining two categories were government policy and vision, a new category in which Bermuda scored 8.35 out of 10, and consumer and business adoption, where the Island improved from 7.75 to 8.80.