Malaysia has made significant progress in innovation, ranking 33rd out of 133 countries in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2024.
This is Malaysia's best result since 2016, rising from 36th place, where it remained from 2021 to 2023.
The country also ranks second among Upper Middle-Income countries and leads in key areas such as science and engineering graduates, high-tech exports, and creative product exports.
In addition, Kuala Lumpur has been recognized among the world's 100 best science and technology clusters, ranking 93rd.
The Malaysian government sees this achievement as an important achievement towards becoming a global innovation leader.
However, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Chang Lih Kang, stressed that more efforts are needed.
He emphasized the importance of increasing research and development (R&D) investment, currently at 1% of gross domestic expenditure.
Malaysia aims to increase it to 3.5% by 2030 to remain competitive with countries such as South Korea and Japan.
Moving forward, Malaysia plans to launch the Malaysian Innovation Index (MII) in 2025 to measure innovation at the state level, targeting more targeted engagement to strengthen the country's innovation ecosystem.
