Thailand innovation 'hurt by weakness in two areas'

Thailand's global innovation ranking could have been higher than 48th place were it not for weak scores in two main pillars - institutions, and human capital and research.

Introduced in 2007, the survey by the Insead business school showed that for the first pillar on institutions, among the 125 economies used to determine the Global Innovation Index 2011, Thailand was ranked 71st, with weak political stability and press freedom.

For the second pillar, Thailand was 94th in education with a high pupil-teacher ratio. For research and development, Thailand was 83rd. For infrastructure, it was 78th.

Input from the private sector has proved more efficient, as the ranking for the market-sophistication pillar is 33rd place while for the business-sophistication pillar it is 25th.

Overall, Thailand's ranking improved from 60th last year. The country's 2011 ranking was ninth in the East Asia region.

The survey aims to show the link between innovation and economic prosperity. It covered 125 economies, accounting for 93.2 per cent of the world's population and 98 per cent of the world's gross domestic product in current US dollars.

The 2011 report shows that innovation is coming into its own as an essential element of resilience, as economies aim to sustain their growth while creating new jobs for their citizens.

The index covers five main pillars capturing elements of the national economy that enable innovative activities - institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, and business sophistication.

Complementing them are two output pillars - scientific output and creative output.

In the 2011 survey, Switzerland is ranked No 1, followed by Sweden and Singapore. Among countries in East Asia, South Korea is ranked 16th, well beyond Japan's 20th, China's 29th, Malaysia's 31st, Vietnam's 51st and India's 62nd.

Patchima Thanasanti, director-general of the Intellectual Property Department, said yesterday that the report demonstrated that emerging markets such as India and South Korea had put greater emphasis on industrial innovation.

"They are more involved in the fashion industry, which has been dominated by designers from Europe. These emerging designers have blended innovation and local cultures into their products. Innovation is also applied in packaging designs, to add product value," she said.