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Friday, March 29, 2024

PH ranks 51st among 132 economies in terms of innovation–DTI

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The Philippines remains among the world’s most innovative economies, sustaining its ‘innovation achiever’ status for the third straight year.

It was ranked 51st among 132 countries in the Global Innovation Index 2021. Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the ranking was achieved through the country’s inclusive innovation industrial strategy.

“We have focused our efforts on strengthening national and regional innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems by forging government-industry-academe collaboration, enabling a strong business and policy environment and upskilling our creative talent pool,” Lopez said.

“Our experience validates the strong potential of innovation to catalyze job creation, upgrade industrial competitiveness and attract high-value investments,” he said.

The GII 2021 noted that the Philippines continued to perform better in innovation outputs than innovation inputs.

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Among its innovation output strengths are in high-tech exports (ranked 1st in the world), utility models by origin (8th), creative goods exports (as percent of total trade, 10th globally) and ICT services exports (percentage of total trade, 13th globally).

For innovation inputs, the country’s strengths are in high-tech imports (1st), firms offering formal training (8th) and trade, diversification and market scale (21st).

“This means that we were able to produce more and higher-quality innovation outputs despite our limited innovation resources and pandemic-induced setbacks. This is reflected in the GII observation that the Philippines continues to be among the countries that perform above expectations given our current level of development,” said Lopez.

The Philippines placed 4th among the 34 lower middle-income group economies. It is 11th among the 17 economies in Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania, with a performance that is above the regional average in the two pillars of business sophistication and knowledge and technology outputs.

The country is also among the “TVIP economies [Turkey, Viet Nam, India and the Philippines], which are systematically catching up… and have the potential to change the global innovation landscape for good.”

“By making our ecosystem inclusive, nurturing a friendly business environment and with government and the private sector providing the needed funds for research and development, we will be able to attract more investments, generate more and better-quality jobs, and produce higher-value products that would lead to better prices in the market for the benefit of our consumers,” said Trae Undersecretary Rafaelita Aldaba.

She pointed out the importance of the collaboration among government agencies and linking the country’s researchers/universities and industry with one another to build and cultivate the nation’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Lopez said the report pointed out salient indicators that merit stronger future policy action, including ease of getting credit, inflow of venture capital, creation of new businesses, ease of doing business and attracting global corporate R&D investments.

“We have seen that with the right collaborators, our country’s entrepreneurial and innovative people can boost and optimize their discovery potential and serve as a primary engine of economic development especially amidst the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As envisioned by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, this is the best way by which we can spur new enterprises, create more and better jobs, and build our industrial competitiveness towards a more comfortable life for all Filipinos,” Lopez said.

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