Singapore has lost the top spot among Asia-Pacific Countries in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2021 to South Korea after topping the list for seven consecutive years, although it has maintained its global ranking of 8th. This comes after South Korea has made notable advances in innovation output, allowing it to enter the top 5 of the GII for the first time, behind only Switzerland, Sweden, USA and the UK, who took the top 4 spots respectively.
The GII, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, noted that Singapore has been among the top 10 most innovative economies consistently for the past 14 years. Among the various indicators in the GII, Singapore has consistently ranked first for “innovation inputs” over the past 10 years, while it moved up two places to the 13th position for innovation output this year. It also attained the top position for two new indicators relating to capital raising and financing – “venture capital (VC) investors” and “venture capital recipients”.
(Source: World Intellectual Property Organization; Business Times)
