China ranks among Bloomberg's top 50 most innovative countries

Bloomberg recently released the rankings for the top 50 most innovative countries in the world. China occupied the 22nd position in the overall ranking, and the second and third positions in high-tech companies and patents rankings.

Bloomberg Rankings evaluated more than 200 countries and sovereign regions based on their overall ability to innovate. Six equally weighted metrics were considered: Research and Development (R&D), manufacturing, high-tech companies, post-secondary education, research personnel, and patents.

South Korea was named the most innovative country in the world, followed by Japan, Germany, Finland, Israel and the US Hong Kong placed 34th in the ranking.

The top five countries in the high-tech companies ranking are the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Canada. China's Tencent ranked second with market capitalization of 147 billion US dollars.

In the patents ranking, South Korea came first due to the huge contribution of Samsung, followed by Japan and China.

The report pointed out that the evaluation left out one important but hard-to-quantify influence: government regulation, which can either accelerate or impede the adoption of new ideas.