Czech Republic among top-30 world countries with the best digital quality of life

A new survey has ranked the Czech Republic in 28th place in the world in terms of the quality of its digital environment. The Czech Republic’s position was an improvement of four places compared to last year, based on an evaluation of various aspects of digital environments worldwide.

With significant investments into the digital transformation coming using money from the EU’s pandemic recovery budget, the quality of the Czech digital environment is set to increase even further.

The Digital Quality of Life survey, conducted by cybersecurity company Surfshark, found Denmark, South Korea, and Finland to be the three countries with the best digital environments. The survey evaluated five areas: the availability of internet connection, the quality of connectivity, existing digital infrastructure, digital security, and eGovernment (the management of public affairs using modern technologies).

In the area of digital security, the Czech Republic ranked in second place, with only Greece attaining a higher score.

The study evaluated the digital situation in 110 countries worldwide, home to 90 percent of the world’s population.

The Czech Republic’s high ranking is set to be bolstered still further by significant investments in digital transformation from the EU’s pandemic recovery budget. The country plans to invest in high-capacity networks, expanded eGovernment services and the digitization of healthcare.

“Planned digitization projects aim to improve the communication of citizens with state authorities, to ensure faster internet, and to strengthen the cybersecurity of public administration, the justice system and the healthcare system,” said Czech Minister of Finance Alena Schillerová about the government’s digitization program.

While the Czech Republic’s position in the global ranking improved compared to 2020, the country lags behind Central European neighbor Poland, which leapt to 25th after significant digital investments since last year. Slovakia ranked in 29th place, only one behind the Czech Republic. Six European countries are in the global top ten: Denmark, Finland, France, Switzerland, Germany and Britain.

While digitization in the Czech Republic is widely perceived as a positive, in the private sector a lack of necessary financial resources is believed to be hampering efforts to implement modern technologies. 61 percent of Czech companies cite a lack of money as a factor holding up digital innovation, while for small- and medium-sized enterprises this proportion is as high as 74 percent.

The ruling ANO government unveiled a national investment plan in 2019 which included a heavy focus on the digitization of industry. Increasing the pace of digital developments is meanwhile a key commitment of the Czech Pirate Party heading into October elections. The party pledges to implement sweeping digital reform throughout the country, within a planned trillion-crown investment into the economy using money coming mainly from the private sector, as well as from EU finances.