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Innovation: Trending Up but needs thrust, especially from the Private Sector 265

Figure 31: Infrastructure Performance (2013-20)

100
89 87 87 87 India China

80 73 77 79 75
Infrastructure Rank 60 44 39 32 36 27 29 26 36

40

20

0
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Source: GII database

8.38 India’s rank has improved considerably on market sophistication pillar from 72 in 2015 to
31 in 2020 (Figure 32). China’s rank has improved from 59 in 2015 to 19 in 2020.The introduction
of domestic market scale as a parameter in market sophistication in 2016, led to India’s rank
improving from 72 in 2015 to 33 in 2016. Since then, India has consistently performed well in
the trade, competition and market scale sub-pillar.

Figure 32: Market Sophistication Performance (2013-20)

80
72 59 India China
Market Sophistication Rank 40 49 35 50 33 21 39 28 36 25 33 21 31 19
60
54

20

0
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Source: GII database

8.39 India’s rank improved significantly on the business sophistication pillar from 116 in 2015
to 55 in 2020 (Figure 33). China’s rank improved from 31 in 2015 to 7 in 2016, thereafter
declining to 15 in 2020. India’s business sophistication rank improved sharply from 116 in
2015 to 57 in 2016 on account of changed indicators in knowledge absorption sub-pillar and
improvement in knowledge workers sub-pillar. In 2020, innovation linkage was overtaken by
knowledge absorption as the best performing business sophistication sub-pillar for India. This
improvement is a positive sign and can be expected to feed into further improvements. India has
consistently lagged behind on the knowledge workers sub-pillar, making it an area warranting
focussed attention.