In 2025, Vietnam will be at the top of the world in three indicators: creative goods exports, high-tech imports and high-tech exports.

On the evening of September 16, at 6:30 p.m. Vietnam time, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a ceremony to announce the Global Innovation Index (GII) Report 2025 in Geneva (Switzerland). Accordingly, Vietnam was ranked 44/139 countries and economies , maintaining its ranking in 2024.

In particular, in 2025, Vietnam will be the world's leading exporter of creative goods for the first time, and will continue to lead in both high-tech import and high-tech export indexes. Other indicators also ranked high, such as: labor productivity growth rate (ranked 4th), number of smartphone applications created (ranked 7th), and the proportion of R&D expenditures covered by enterprises (ranked 8th).

Specifically, the report said that Vietnam continued to improve its innovation input ranking by 3 places compared to 2023, from 53rd to 50th (innovation input includes 5 pillars: Institutions, Human resources and research, Infrastructure, Infrastructure, Business development level).

Innovation output still has a better ranking than innovation input, although the ranking decreased by 1 place compared to 2024, from 36th to 37th (innovation output includes 2 pillars: Knowledge and technology products, Creative products).

According to the GII Report, Vietnam maintains its 2nd position in the group of lower-middle-income countries.

In the ASEAN region, Vietnam surpassed Thailand, ranking 3rd after Singapore and Malaysia.

In the WIPO GII 2025 Report, Vietnam was recognized by WIPO as one of the nine middle-income countries that improved their rankings the fastest since 2013 (including China, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Albania and Turkey). Vietnam is also one of two countries that hold the record for outperforming their development level for 15 consecutive years (including India and Vietnam).

In the input group, many indicators improved significantly: Stability of business environment policies increased by 14 ranks (rank 28), effectiveness of law enforcement increased by 5 ranks (rank 67), average tariff increased by 28 ranks (rank 20), domestic production diversity increased by 10 ranks (rank 13), the proportion of female workers with high technical qualifications increased by 7 ranks (rank 81), the rate of co-publishing research between institutes - schools - enterprises increased by 15 ranks (rank 51).

In the output group, many indicators also improved positively: The number of PCT patent applications increased by 17 ranks (rank 74), spending on computer software increased by 7 ranks (rank 56), the complexity of production and export increased by 9 ranks (rank 52), the number of ISO 9001 certificates increased by 4 ranks (rank 58), the density of intangible assets increased by 3 ranks (rank 54), the number of source code edits on Github increased by 8 ranks (rank 48).

Despite the progress, Vietnam still has some weaknesses that need attention. In the institutional pillar, the quality of legal regulations ranked only 95th, the effectiveness of law enforcement was 67th. In the education sector, education spending (as a percentage of GDP) fell 10 places to 116th, the secondary school student/teacher ratio ranked 107th, and the ability to attract international students was low (108th).

In the infrastructure pillar, the ICT index group is still limited at 69th place, of which ICT access is ranked 77th, ICT usage is ranked 54th. The ecological sustainability index has dropped sharply, GDP/energy unit is ranked 73rd and the low-carbon energy ratio is ranked 58th. The investment index group dropped 12 places to 62nd place, of which venture capital did not improve, microcredit fell to 58th place.

In the output group, the number of scientific and technical publications (rank 105), ICT service exports (rank 103) and royalties and licenses (rank 112) were all low. In the creative field, cultural service exports fell 14 places (rank 95), and feature film production fell 11 places (rank 87).

The GII 2025 results show that Vietnam continues to effectively utilize resources to create innovation results that exceed development levels, while affirming the important role of science, technology and innovation in economic growth. In the context of global innovation facing many crossroads, maintaining and improving rankings is an important basis for Vietnam to continue to improve policies and enhance national competitiveness in the coming period.

Source: VTC News