Vietnam was ranked 47th out of 127 economies in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2017, 12 places higher than last year and its highest level to date.

Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)

“The ten countries with the highest Innovation Efficiency Ratios are countries that combine certain levels of innovation inputs with more robust output results: Luxembourg, Switzerland, China, the Netherlands, Iceland, Ireland, Germany, Malta, Turkey, and Vietnam,” according to the accompanying report.

The report noted that, compared to previous years, new middle-income economies joined the Top 10 most efficient economies: China, which entered the Top 10 last year, was joined this year by Turkey and Vietnam, a lower-middle-income economy, which made the most spectacular progress this year.

It described Vietnam as among the “new Asian Tigers” on the rise. “New Asian Tigers - such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam - are emerging too, and they increasingly join not only Asian high- tech value chains but also other activities such as ICT offshoring,” the report stated.

“Although Singapore is still uncontested as Number 1 among the smaller or emerging Asian economies, countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand are rapidly catching up. Among them, Vietnam tops education expenditure in the region and does very well in ICT use, gross capital formation, and FDI net inflows.”

Moreover, the report said that Vietnam and these other countries have also become active in improving their innovation performance, sometimes in showcasing best practice use of the GII findings, paired with remarkable innovation results. “In 2017, for example, the Vietnamese Government mandated Resolution 19-2017/NQ-CP,” the report stated. “Through this resolution, the government has assigned responsibilities to ministries, agencies, and local governments to undertake actions to improve Vietnam’s performance, and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) has been tasked with coordinating these efforts.”

The resolution was accompanied by action, such as a meeting between MoST and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held in Hanoi last March to address missing and outdated data and to help leverage Vietnam’s innovation strengths and overcome related weaknesses. Such steps were noted positively in the report.

The report also said that newly-emerging Asian economies such as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam still experience low R&D and low resident patenting levels./.

VNF/ Vneconomictimes