Adding another feather in its cap, Singapore has ranked third in the latest Bloomberg 2018 Innovation Index, scoring even ahead of European countries like Germany and Switzerland.
The position of Singapore has rose by three notches as compared to 2017, when it ranked sixth globally. The annual ranking of the countries is done by Bloomberg based on seven parameters, including research and development expenditure, productivity and concentration of high-tech public companies, tertiary efficiency, research concentration and patent activity.
South Korea has maintained its top spot on the index for the fifth consecutive year. Sweden also maintained its position on the index from last year, ranking second.
Singapore jumped ahead of European countries like Germany and Finland because of its top ranking in the tertiary-efficiency category. Singapore has an overall score of 83.05.
Commenting on the performance of Singapore, Yeo Kiat Seng, professor and associate provost at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, said, “Singapore has always placed strong focus on educating her populace, especially in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines.”
South Korea, on the other hand, maintained its top position with the abundant US patents Samsung Electronics Co. has, and its foray into digital-media equipment, semiconductors and smartphones.
Japan, one of the three Asian countries to be within the top 10 positions in the index, rose one spot from 2017 to rank sixth on the index.
However, United States was dropped out of the top 10 positions within the index for the first time in six years.
China ranked 19th on the index, going up two spots from its rankings last year. Malaysia, Hong Kong and Thailand also managed to make it into the top 50 on the index. Malaysia ranked 26, falling three notches from last year. Hong Kong's position fell by two spots to 37 since last year, while Thailand went down the index by one spot to 45.