Israel leapt ahead of the US, Singapore, and Japan in its rise from 10th place last year.
Bloomberg put Israel in fifth place in its innovation index for 2019, ahead of the US (eighth place), Singapore (sixth place), and Japan (ninth place). The annual index is being published for the seventh time. Israel was rated 10th place last year, with better patent registration being responsible for a large part of the improvement in ranking.
Bloomberg put South Korea in first place on the index for the sixth time, due to new investments in key technologies and a regulatory plan for encouraging startups. Germany advanced into second place due to investment in production and research by many of its industrial giants, such as Volkswagen, Daimler, and Bosch. Third and fourth places were taken by Finland and Switzerland, respectively.
China, the world's second largest economy, was rated only in 16th place. Although Bloomberg rated China in second place in patents because of companies like Huawei and BOE, which invest in research and development, China trails far behind in general productivity.
The index is compiled through an examination of areas such as R&D spending, production capability, and public high-tech companies. Bloomberg examined 200 coountries, each of which received a rating between 0 and 100 in seven categories of equal weight. Only 95 countries appear in the final list, because countries that did not submit data for at least six categories were removed from the list. Bloomberg published the 60 highest-rated companies.