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Jordan jumps 17 places on int'l creativity index

AMMAN - Jordan is one of the 50 most innovative countries in the world, ranking 41 internationally, according to the Global Innovation Index (GII) for 2011.

Going up by 17 places from 2010, when it stood at the 57th, the Kingdom now ranks third in the Arab world in the index after Qatar and the UAE.

The report, prepared by INSEAD school of business, measures the countries' performance including several aspects that impact creativity.

It relies on two sub-indices; the Innovative Input Sub-Index and the Innovative Output Sub-Index, showing five input pillars of the national economy that enable innovative activities: Institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication and business sophistication.

The report highlighted two output pillars that show the actual evidence of innovation outputs, which are scientific and creative productions.

In the institutions index, which measures political stability, government effectiveness, press freedom, regulatory environment, rule of law, rigidity of employment, business environment, cost of starting a business and the total tax rate, Jordan ranked 62nd globally and 6th at the regional level.

In human capital and research, which has to do with education expenditure, school life expectancy and research and development (R&D), the report shows that the Kingdom was placed at 50th internationally and 5th regionally.

The country ranked 96th at the global level and 11th in the Arab world in the infrastructure indicators, which includes IT and telecommunications, e-government services, energy, electricity, transport and gross capital formation.

As for the market sophistication, which measures credit, investment, microfinance gross loans, strength of investor protection, applied tariffs, market access, trade restrictiveness, the GDP and export, Jordan ranked 44th globally and 5th regionally.

It also stood in 77th place on the international level and 7th in the Arab world in the business sophistication pillar, which takes into account knowledge workers, firms offering formal training, R&D performed and financed by businesses, cooperation between the business industry and universities, patents, R&D financed by abroad and high-tech imports.

Jordan also ranked 77th internationally and 7th regionally in the scientific output pillar, which measure knowledge creation, domestic patents, technical and scientific articles, GDP growth, new businesses, computer software spending, the rate of computer and telecommunications exports compared to the exports of trade services and direct foreign investment compared to the GDP.

As for the creative outputs pillars, which include statistics on trademark registrations by residents, use of ICT in business and organisational models and new areas that are increasingly linked to innovation, the report shows that the Kingdom ranks 10th globally and 1st in the region.

The last pillar also measures creative goods and services, household expenditure on recreation and cultural services and the number of daily newspapers and films produced for every one million citizens.

© Jordan Times 2011