PUTRAJAYA (Sept 30): Malaysia has emerged 33rd out of 133 countries on the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2024, its highest ranking since 2016, said Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Chang Lih Kang.
He said it was an encouraging improvement after being ranked 36th for three years, from 2021 to 2023, adding that Malaysia did not only improve its ranking overall but maintained its excellent performance in several main fields.
“Malaysia remains second among the most innovative countries in the Upper Middle-Income Countries category, and is first in three critical sub-indicators — graduates in science and engineering, high technology exports, and creative product exports, while Kuala Lumpur is listed in the 100 World’s Best Science and Technology Clusters for the first time at 93rd place,” he said in a statement here on Monday.
He added that efforts to strengthen the innovation field were needed, as it was a benchmark in proving the country’s ability to compete globally, especially in the fields of science and technology.
“This achievement is an important step to making Malaysia a world-class innovative country. But we cannot stop here; we must continue to explore and invest in innovations that can be translated into sustainable and continuous progress to achieve the Madani Economy’s goals,” he said.
Chang said that Malaysia needs to continue boosting investment in research and development (R&D), which currently is at gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) of 1%, and lagged behind developed countries such as South Korea with a rate of 4.93%, and Japan with a rate of 3.41%.
“To reach the target of the top 30 in the world by 2025, Malaysia needs to intensify investments in R&D, the government is expected to need to invest around RM26 billion a year, and the private sector RM60 billion to achieve the target of GERD [of] 3.5% by 2030,” he said.
He also shared that his ministry would launch the Malaysia Innovation Index (MII), a platform to measure innovation levels in each state, next year, to enable the implementation of accurate interventions to strengthen innovation ecosystems in the country.
The GII, a report issued by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) based in Geneva, Switzerland, is an important index used by countries and multinational companies to assess innovation ecosystems, and aid policymaking and investment decisions.
Uploaded by Liza Shireen Koshy