Egypt moved up 10 places to rank #92 in the 2019 Global Innovation Index (pdf), while its position remains unchanged at #17 among North African/West Asian countries. The report notes that Egypt’s strengths include knowledge-intensive employment, the state of cluster development, knowledge impact (particularly when it comes to the percentage growth of PPP and GDP per worker, as well as GDP spending on computer software), creative goods exports, and our trade, competition, and market scale. On the flipside, Egypt’s general infrastructure, regulatory environment, and investments were among the weaknesses in our country profile (pdf).

The improvement in overall ranking comes despite our performance in some metrics taking a hit, including the human capital and research category, which dropped seven places to #96. The category measures the performance of education systems, government spending on schools and universities, and activity and investment in research and development. Egypt also regressed in the education rating, which fell by 10 places to #94 in the world. These two metrics had also been Egypt’s most significant weak points in last year’s ranking.