Global Innovation Index: Vietnam rises to 3rd place in the region

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has just released the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2025 Report. Vietnam ranked 44/139 countries/ economies , maintaining its ranking in 2024, and at the same time, Vietnam surpassed Thailand, rising to 3rd place in the ASEAN region, after Singapore and Malaysia.

According to the Report, Vietnam maintained its 2nd position in the group of lower middle-income countries, after India at 38th place. Notably, Vietnam is also recognized as one of the 9 middle-income countries with the fastest improvement in rankings since 2013 and is one of the 2 countries holding the record of having outstanding achievements compared to the level of development for 15 consecutive years, including India and Vietnam.

The Global Innovation Index 2025 report shows that Vietnam has three leading indicators in the world : the index of creative goods exports, high-tech imports and high-tech exports. This is also the first time Vietnam has ranked first in the world in these indicators. In addition, some other indicators also achieved high positions such as: Labor productivity growth rate (ranked 4th), number of smartphone applications created (ranked 7th), and the proportion of research and development (R&D) expenditures covered by enterprises (ranked 8th).

The Military Industry-Telecoms Group ( Viettel ) started construction of the Viettel High-Tech Research and Development and Data Center at Tan Phu Trung Industrial Park (Cu Chi District, Ho Chi Minh City). (Photo: Tien Luc/VNA)

Mr. Tran Le Hong, Deputy Director of the National Office of Intellectual Property (Ministry of Science and Technology) said that the Global Innovation Index Report 2025 mainly uses data from 2023-2024 for assessment. The Party's policies in the recently implemented Resolutions, along with the positive and strong changes in science, technology, innovation and digital transformation activities, will be reflected in the Global Innovation Index Report with significant improvements in the following years.

Affirming the important role of science, technology and innovation, Mr. Tran Le Hong emphasized that the efficiency of exploiting resources to create innovative results has been improved. In the context of global innovation facing many crossroads, maintaining and improving rankings is an important basis for Vietnam to continue to perfect mechanisms and policies, promote innovation activities to enhance national competitiveness and create breakthroughs in socio-economic development in the coming period.

Notably, innovation inputs include 5 pillars (including: institutions; human resources and research; infrastructure; market development level; business development level), Vietnam still has weaknesses that need to be focused on to improve in the following years.

The Global Innovation Index report is currently used by many governments as an important reference tool for state management activities on science, technology and innovation, as well as for the development of science, technology and innovation policies.

In recent times, Vietnam has used this index as one of the important management and administration tools and has assigned ministries, agencies and localities to share responsibility for improving the index.

The Global Innovation Index is a prestigious toolkit for assessing national innovation capacity in the world, reflecting the socio-economic development model based on science, technology and innovation of countries. Thereby, helping countries see the overall picture as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

In Vietnam, the Ministry of Science and Technology is assigned to be the focal point for monitoring and general coordination. Since 2017, Vietnam's Global Innovation Index has continuously improved, rising from 59th place (in 2016) to 44th out of 133 countries and economies in 2024 and this ranking will continue to be maintained in 2025./.

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