Singapore is fifth in 2018's Global Innovation Index

SINGAPORE has moved up two spots to place fifth in this year's Global Innovation Index, while remaining top of the list among countries in South-east Asia, East Asia and Oceania.

Singapore remained top of the class for government effectiveness, regulatory quality and foreign direct investment outflows. Singapore was also the best performer for political stability and safety, market capitalisation, foreign direct investment inflows, high and medium-high tech manufacturing and high-tech net exports.

The annual ranking done by Cornell University, Insead and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) measures 126 countries based on 80 criteria, running the gamut from intellectual property filing rates to mobile-application creation, education spending and scientific and technical publications.

In the overall global ranking, Singapore ranked behind Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, and beat the US (which fell from fourth place last year), Finland, Denmark and Germany.

Among regional countries, Singapore did better than South Korea, which placed 12th overall, and Japan, which was 13th globally.

Organisers also noted that after being 22th last year, China's 17th ranking this year "represents a breakthrough for an economy witnessing rapid transformation guided by government policy prioritising research and development-intensive ingenuity".

The report also noted that some middle and lower-income economies such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam continue to move up the ranking in terms of innovation "perform significantly better on innovation than their level of development would predict".