Malaysia ranks 37th in Global Innovation Index

2015 Malaysia VEX Robotics Competition.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is ranked 8th in Asia and 37th worldwide in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2017 report released by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organisation on Thursday.

The report also said Malaysia was among the top 10 economies in Asia, behind Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia, and that the country was among the middle-income economies that were the closest to the top 25 this year.

Last year, Malaysia was in the 35th position in the GII report, which measured the innovation performance of 127 economies around the world.

The inclusion of the Russian Federation and Argentina in the middle-income group had led to the downward movement of Mexico, Malaysia, Turkey, and Thailand - economies that have been in the middle-income top 10 since the innovation quality metric was introduced.

The report said Malaysia also had the best cluster development and information and communications technology use, and had maintained its strengths in high-technology imports and exports and creative goods exports, among other indicators.

However, it also said that research and development, as well as resident patenting levels in newly emerging Asian economies such as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, was still low. - Bernama