New York (AP) – China joined the world's top 20 most innovative economies for the first time, while Thailand made a comeback to the achievers list this year, according to a report released last week by one of its co-sponsors, the U.N. intellectual property agency.
Francis Gurry, director general of the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization, said China's ranking represents a breakthrough for its economy, which is rapidly transforming and prioritizing research and ingenuity.
The report said "China's innovation prowess becomes evident in various areas," with some of its greatest improvements in global research and development companies, high technology imports, the quality of its publications, and enrollment in graduate education.
"In absolute values, and in areas such as R&D expenditures and the number of researchers, patents and publications, China is now first or second in the world, with volumes that overshadow most high income economies," it said.
The report said that China's rapid rise in the rankings over the last few years has been spectacular and that it shows the way for other middle-income economies, though only Malaysia, currently 35th in the rankings, continues to edge closer to the top 25.
According to the index, 20 middle and lower-income economies that perform "significantly better" than their level of development would predict made this year's list of "innovation achievers," including three for the first time – South Africa, Tunisia and Colombia.
There were five achievers from Eastern Europe – Moldova, Armenia, Ukraine, Montenegro and Serbia.
The report singles out three countries that made a comeback to the achievers list this year – Mongolia, Thailand and Montenegro. In addition to Kenya, three other countries have been on the achievers list for eight years – Moldova, Vietnam and India.