Policy expert: China 'on right path' to market leadership

NEW YORK - China is "on the right path" toward becoming a leading power in global scientific and technological innovations, a renowned US scholar on technology and innovation policy has said.

"China has been doing extremely well in the Global Innovation Index ranking," said Soumitra Dutta, co-editor of the ranking and founding dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

The annual ranking was co-authored by Cornell University, INSEAD business school and the World Intellectual Property Organization. China took the 22nd spot in this year's list, published in June, and the 25th in last year's, becoming the first ever middle-income country in the top 25 ranking.

"China has been going up consistently," he said.

"China has been investing for many years in some basic elements, for example, human capital and research and infrastructure ... China is doing a lot of right things. China is on a right path," Dutta said.

China has incorporated the 2030 Agenda in its 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) and set the course of pursuing innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development. It has also launched the campaign of "Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship," which entails a package of measures and policies to encourage creativity and entrepreneurship on an unprecedented scale.

"Overall, what I found very impressive is that the government of China has a very clear attitude toward innovation being a national priority," Dutta added. "That's very important for the ... competitiveness of China going forward, China can no longer be a low-cost producer. It has to actually be high value creative and to create value you need innovation."

The Indian-American professor also called for closer international cooperation in pushing forward global innovation.

"Close cooperation is extremely important for innovation. Innovation is a global phenomena. People collaborate across border, across country - that's how innovation comes," he said.

The GII, which started in 2007, ranks about 130 economies around the world using an innovation performance score out of 100 points, based on the country's institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, and finally creative outputs.

Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands are the top three in the 2017 ranking, which has noted a continued gap in innovation capacity between developed and developing nations.

"Efforts to bridge the innovation divide have to start with helping emerging economies understand their innovation strengths and weaknesses and create appropriate policies and metrics," Dutta said.

Xinhua

(China Daily 07/27/2017 page17)