Malaysia ranks 8th in SEA, East Asia and Oceania region for innovation | Marketing Interactive

Malaysia has ranked eighth in the Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania region in the yearly Global Innovation Index (GII) by INSEAD, World Intellectual Property Organization and Cornell University. Globally, it ranks 35th, keeping the same position as last year.

According to the report, Malaysia improves its rankings in four of the seven GII pillars: institutions (40th), infrastructure (42nd), business sophistication (36th), and creative outputs (44th). The most significant improvements are in quality of universities, where it ranks 17th this year, followed by gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) performed by business as well as GERD financed by business, where it takes the 25th and 16th positions respectively.

“It remains among the middle-income economies that are bridging the innovation divide, thanks to its first rank in indicators such as high-tech net exports and creative goods exports,” said the report. Malaysia also ranks in the top 10 in several other indicators such as graduates in science and engineering (8th), university-industry research collaboration (8th), state of cluster development (8th), and high-tech imports (3rd). Areas of relative weakness, on the other hand, include GERD financed by abroad, and trademarks and industrial designs by origin.

Middle-income economies and the Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania region played a “central role” when looking at the top 2,500 private sector companies who invested the largest sums in R&D in the world in the financial year 2017/18. In 2017, 591 companies from middle-income economies made the list of the top 2,500 private spenders.

Aside from China, Malaysia (35th) remain the only other middle-income economy in Asia that are close to the top 25, finds the report. In the quality of innovation, Malaysia is 5th among middle-income economies and 32nd overall.

On a regional level, continuous innovation performance improvements are primarily happening in Asia, said the report. Growth in R&D intensity is concentrated in a few countries, including Malaysia, which increased from 0.2% to 1.3% in the same period.