Singapore ranked most innovative country in Asia

By Sim Ping Khuan, Channel NewsAsia, 3 Jul 2012 

Singapore has been ranked the most innovative country in Asia for the second year in a row.

Globally, Singapore maintained its number three ranking for the second year running, according to the fifth Global Innovation Index published by international business school INSEAD.

Singapore was placed just below European nations Switzerland and Sweden in this year's Global Innovation Index, which ranked 141 economies worldwide on the basis of their innovation capabilities and results.

Only two Asian economies were placed in the top 20 this year.

Hong Kong was ranked eighth this year, down four places from 2011.

According to the index, Singapore was ranked first in its innovation capabilities, due to a well-trained workforce, a robust research community and sophisticated financial markets.

Nina Laven, associate director, Asia-Pacific, INSEAD e-Lab, said: "Singapore and Hong Kong are very similar in that they both have very open and dynamic economies, very sophisticated business and market ecosystems. There's a major difference and that's human capital and research, and knowledge and technology outputs. 

"There are deep strengths and very strong performances in Singapore, particularly in the area of human capital and research."

The country also saw clear improvements in productivity and foreign direct investment outflows.

But it lagged behind in producing actual evidence of innovation results.

The index also captures actual evidence of innovation results, including knowledge and technology outputs and creative outputs.

While Singapore has done well in terms of innovation input, scoring first overall, it is placed only 11th on the innovation output subindex.

This means that while Singapore has invested significantly to create the most conducive environment for innovation, the output results of these efforts produced have come in below expectations.

In terms of matching innovation input levels with output results, the country ranks only 83rd globally.

This year, online creativity was added as a new criterion in the ranking, reflecting the importance of the Internet to global businesses.

Andrew Khaw, senior director, Industry Development, Infocomm Development Authority, said: "We see that businesses which are non-IT are now trying to embrace things like social media, business analytics, enterprise mobility... 

"And the rate of innovation is so fast that they need to find ways to co-innovate with the IT industry... More and more of such enterprises will need to use IT to innovate and differentiate themselves."

Singapore was placed 11th in access to infocomm technology and 15th in usage globally.