Bangladesh has slipped three notches to rank 105th among 132 economies in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2023.
Bangladesh falls behind India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan but stays ahead of Nepal in South Asia, according to the GII 2023.
According to the report released by the UN agency World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on Tuesday, the country lags behind India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The 16th edition of the index ranks world economies according to their innovation capabilities.
The country was ranked 105th in the latest GII, down from 102nd a year ago.
Earlier, Bangladesh was placed in the same 116th position among 132 countries on the index from 2018 to 2021, before moving up 14 notches to be in the 102nd position in the GII 2022,
In Central and Southern Asia, India which was ranked 40th, is the best-ranked innovation economy in this region.
According to the report, Bangladesh's ranking in market sophistication, under which credit and domestic industry diversification falls, dropped to 100th this year from 92nd the previous year
With the downgrade in ranking, Bangladesh's ranking among 37 lower income countries dropped to 22nd with a score of 20.2 in 2023 from 20th the previous year.
The country ranked 7th among 10 economies in Central and Southern Asia.
According to the report, Bangladesh performed better in innovation outputs than in innovation inputs in 2023.
The country ranked 89th in innovation outputs, up from 90th last year. It slipped to 114th in innovation inputs from 112th.
Switzerland, Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore are the world's most innovative economies this year.
According to the report, Bangladesh performed better in innovation outputs than in innovation inputs in 2023.
This year, Bangladesh ranked 114th in innovation inputs. This position is lower than last year.
Bangladesh ranked 89th in innovation outputs which is higher than last year.
Among the seven pillars, the strongest areas for Bangladesh are creative outputs at 82nd, knowledge and technology outputs at 89th, infrastructure at 93rd, and market sophistication at 100th.
The weakest areas are business sophistication at 126th, human capital and research at 125th, and institutions at 108th.
However, Bangladesh performs below the lower-middle-income group average in knowledge and technology outputs, business sophistication, market sophistication, human capital and research, and institutions.
The report also highlighted Bangladesh's strengths and weaknesses under the sub-pillars of the seven pillars.
Bangladesh ranked 130th in the ICT services imports sub-pillar, environmental performance at 129th, pupil-teacher ratio at the secondary level at 123rd, expenditure on education at 122nd, and graduates in science and engineering at 108th, which are major weaknesses.
In the area of knowledge impact on labour productivity growth, Bangladesh ranked seventh, while in the area of GDP per unit of energy use, the country ranked 14th.
Bangladesh's position was also 14th in terms of loans from microfinance institutions in the field of credit.
These are Bangladesh's main innovation strengths.
