Morocco has secured its highest-ever ranking in the 2025 Global Innovation Index, advancing nine positions to reach 57th spot among 139 evaluated economies. This historic achievement marks the kingdom’s first entry into the global top 60, demonstrating sustained progress from 75th position in 2020 to current standings that place Morocco fourth among lower-middle-income countries.
The advancement reflects Morocco’s systematic economic transformation from commodity-based and low-cost production toward technology-intensive sectors with greater intellectual capital integration. Within the North Africa and West Asia region, Morocco now ranks eighth, showcasing competitive performance against regional peers.
The Global Innovation Index measures innovation through dual perspectives: input resources and output results. Morocco ranks 77th in innovation inputs, representing investments and resources deployed, while achieving significantly better performance in innovation outputs at 51st position. This efficiency ratio demonstrates the kingdom’s capacity to transform investments into tangible technological and creative results.
Morocco’s sectoral performance reveals remarkable strengths in high-technology manufacturing, achieving 12th global position in a sector representing nearly 50% of total manufacturing output. The kingdom maintains top-10 global standing in industrial design deposits relative to GDP, securing sixth worldwide position.
Additional strong performances include 16th global ranking in education expenditure, 24th in labor productivity growth, 26th in trademark deposits, and 26th in intangible asset intensity. These indicators reflect increasingly sophisticated private sector capabilities in generating intangible value through brand development and value chain advancement.
Morocco joins the exclusive “innovation overperformer” category, designating countries whose innovation performance exceeds expectations based on development levels. This recognition places Morocco alongside India, Vietnam, Brazil, and Indonesia as emerging economies demonstrating consistent innovation commitment.
Despite positive momentum, the report recommends intensified research and development investments and strengthened collaboration between innovation actors including enterprises, universities, and research centers to consolidate and sustain gains.
