bloomberg.com
Ukraine has been included in the world's 50 most innovative economies, according to Bloomberg.
South Korea ranked world's most innovative economy. Germany, Sweden, Japan and Switzerland rounded out the top five in the 2016 Bloomberg Innovation Index, which scored economies using factors including research and development spending and concentration of high-tech public companies.
South Korea notched top scores worldwide for manufacturing value-added as well as for tertiary efficiency — a measure that includes enrollment in higher education and the concentration of science and engineering graduates, according to the report.
South Korea's almost six-point edge on No. 2 Germany — and outpacing of neighbors Japan (No. 4) and China (No. 21) — also might understate the degree of economic competition felt among those in the Asian nation.
Read alsoCabinet outlines measures to improve Ukraine's Doing Business rankingThe world's largest economy, the U.S., took No. 8 in the rankings, Bloomberg said. The placement for the world's second-largest economy, China, at No. 21 in the innovation index is reasonable given its status as a developing country in which technologies are largely copied rather than created, according to Jay Bryson, global economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The same could be said for other countries where the comparative advantage is still relatively cheap labor rather than cutting-edge technologies.
The ranking began with over 200 economies, from which those that didn't report data for at least six of seven categories measured were eliminated, trimming the list to 84.
Ukraine ranks 41st while Kazakhstan closes the top 50.