Singapore is the 10th most "creatively productive" country

Having already been heralded as Asia’s most innovative country, Singapore has now also proved its creative efficiency on a newly-developed Creative Productivity Index.

Developed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Economist Intelligence Unit, the index found Singapore to be the 10th most efficient country in Asia at turning creative input into tangible economic outputs.

The index - which included a total of 24 economies, with the US and Finland included for comparative purposes - measured the innovative and creative capacity of economies by relating creative input to output.

Singapore topped the rankings on innovation inputs alone, thanks to its strong political institutions, protection of intellectual property, and contract enforcement. However, it ranked sixth, behind New Zealand, for creative output.

“As countries seek to innovate to avoid middle-income traps, all governments — especially those with limited resources — need to be sure that their investments boost both efficiency and productivity, benefiting their economies and people, and move to a knowledge-based economy,” Bindu N. Lohani, vice-president for knowledge management and sustainable development at ADB, said.

READ MORE: Singapore reclaims title of most innovative Asian country

Japan was rated as the most effective at turning creative input into output, followed by Finland and Republic of Korea. The United States, and Taipei, China rounded up the top five countries respectively.

The index used 36 input indicators to measure the capacity and incentives for innovation, including how many global top 500 universities a country has, the urbanisation rate, spending on research and development, protection of intellectual property rights, and corruption and bureaucracy.

The eight output indicators to measure innovation included the number of patents filed, export sophistication, value added to agriculture, and the number of books and films produced.

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