Accordingly, Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Creative Productivity Index (CPI) has ranked Sri Lanka at the 19th position among 22 economies.
Japan, Republic of Korea and China lead the pack while Bangladesh, Fiji, Myanmar, Pakistan and Cambodia trail at the bottom end of the index, which was developed by ADB and Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU).
The United States and Finland were brought into the index just for the comparison sake and they rank at the fourth and second positions, respectively.
CPI measures the innovation efficiency—how proficient economies are at turning innovation ‘inputs’ such as skills or infrastructure into innovation ‘outputs’ such as patents or scientific publications.
It was only recently Technology and Research Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka blamed the government for not investing adequately on research and development (R&D).
Sri Lanka targets to allocate at least 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on R&D but it remained even less than 0.5 percent of GDP. Minister Ranawaka also claimed that even the meagre funds allocated and the concessions granted on R&D have failed to yield productive results benefiting the economy.
“A market environment, which is conducive for translation of research outcomes into commercializable products and for transformation of inventors into entrepreneurs, is absolutely essential,” he told the seventh biennial conference on science and technology, held recently. On the input side, the index has measured the progress of a country through the capacity to innovate, incentives to innovate and most importantly the conduciveness of the environment to innovate. Output measures were based on the number of patents filed and broader set of measures of knowledge creation.
Meanwhile, ADB also highlights Sri Lanka as a country where access to finance is a major barrier, which hinders the supporting environment for innovation.
This ranks Sri Lanka at 23 among 24 countries before Myanmar, while the access to finance is easiest in Hong Kong and China, where the availability of venture capital, the ability to obtain credit, the microfinance penetration rate and investment openness are adequately available.
However, the Sri Lankan government is set to embark on an e-governance project with Estonia – the Northern European nation which has the second highest business start-ups after Israel. The project is hopeful of transferring the learnings to Sri Lanka.
Further, Sri Lanka ranks at the bottom in the sub-index of firm dynamics, which captures the flexibility and vitality of the labour market and workforce.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Dilina Kulathunga
Quelle/Source: Daily Mirror, 16.09.2014
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