MAURITIUS RANKED FIRST IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN "GLOBAL INNOVATION INDEX REPORT 2020"

As part of its quest to position itself among the leaders in the fields of innovation and technology both regionally and globally, Mauritius has gained 30 places in the Global Innovation Index Report 2020, leapfrogging from the 82nd to 52nd position, thus securing 1st place in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This year some key improvements have been observed in pillars such as Institutions, Human Capital and Research, Market Sophistication, Knowledge and Technology outputs and Creative outputs.

The report underlined that Mauritius has gained several places ahead in the Global Innovation Index as a result of a "mix of new data availability, data revisions at the source, and performance effects". Additionally, it was noted that "in particular, Mauritius displays the most notable rank change this year. More complete innovation data, data revisions at source, performance improvements, and model changes explain Mauritius's rise in the rankings".

The Mauritian Government is committed to pursue its innovation agenda through the implementation of continuous enhanced new measures including the Regulatory Sandbox License, Innovators Permit, National Incubator Scheme (NIS) Intellectual Property Box Scheme and Double deduction of qualifying expenditure incurred for R&D purposes scheme.  All these initiatives are geared towards cementing Mauritius's position as an innovation hub whilst consolidating its competitive edge.