India represents South Asia on Bloomberg Innovation Index 2021
South Korea, an East Asian nation, has gained the top place on this index by pushing Germany to the fourth place
04 February, 2021, 02:05 pm
Last modified: 04 February, 2021, 03:25 pm
India is the only South Asian country, which has ranked 50th in the latest Bloomberg Innovation Index 2021, climbing four places from the previous year's position.
The country has performed the best in the high-tech density category and ranked 28th.
In the patent category, it has ranked 32nd.
The seventh position in the overall index has gone to Israel.
The country is in the first place in patent activity and researcher concentration category.
Its worst score is in tertiary efficiency, where it has ranked 34th.
On the other hand, Singapore has gained the top position in the category.
Japan has ranked 12th in the overall index, same as the previous year's ranking.
It has ranked fifth in research and development expenditure category, seventh in manufacturing value-added category and 11th in patent activity.
The US and China, the two biggest economies, account for much of the world's innovation, and they are also locked in a battle over key areas of policies like intellectual property rights.
The gap between them has steadily declined over the lifetime of the index. This year, both have seen their rankings' decline.
Other Asian economies on the index are Malaysia (29th), Turkey (33rd), Thailand (36th), Hong Kong (38th), United Arab Emirates (43rd), Qatar (52th), Saudi Arabia (53th), Vietnam (55th) and Iran (60th).
The 2021 rankings reflect a world where the fight against Covid-19 has brought innovation to the fore –- from government efforts in containing the pandemic to the digital infrastructure that has allowed economies to work through it, and the race to develop vaccines that can end it.
"Many countries high on the index –- like Korea, Germany and Israel –- have been world leaders in some areas of fighting the pandemic, whether it's contact-tracing or speedy vaccination," according to the report.
However, much of the data was taken from the period before the pandemic.
Bloomberg Innovation Index ranks world's 60 most innovative economies' overall innovation capacity. Each economy was scored on a 0-100 scale based on seven equally weighted metrics, including research and development spending, manufacturing capability and concentration of high-tech public companies.
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