The IPRI is an annual comparative study conducted by the Washington-based Property Rights Alliance that quantifies the strength of physical and intellectual property rights, and to rank countries accordingly.

The IPRI scores and ranks each country based on 11 factors reflecting the state of its legal and political enviroment, physical property rights and intellectual property rights. The 2011 edition contains the ranking of 129 economies which represent 97% of the global GDP.

Malaysia’s 2011 IPRI score remained unchanged from 2010 at 6.1 points although its ranking dipped from 41 to 44 with the addition of five new countries to the index.

Finland and Sweden tie for top spot in this year’s index with a score of 8.5 out of 10. This is the fifth year running that Finland has taken the lead despite a slip from last year’s score of 8.6.

Singapore (8.3) is the top scoring country in the combined Asia and Oceana region followed closely by New Zeland (8.2) and Australia (8.0).

At the bottom of the ranking is Bolivia (3.9), Moldova (3.9), Nigeria (3.9), Libya (3.7) and Bangladesh (3.6).

According to the report, the underlying assumption of this study is a strong correlation between an effective property rights regime and its significant impact on the property rights of a country.

“Countries with high property rights scores tend to be the nations with high per capita incomes, almost eight times that of those in the lower rank,” it said. “Additionally, countries with strong property rights regimes tend to attract more foreign direct investment.”

“Developing countries with strong property rights also show stronger per capita GDP growth than those that fail to respect property rights. This observation is especially important considering the role that property rights can play to alleviate poverty.”

The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), however, has expressed concern over Malaysia’s unchanging score.

Its chief executive, Wan Saiful Wan Jan, pointed out in a statement today that all other Asian countries recorded increases in the 2011 index score from as little as 0.1 (Singapore) to as much as 1.4 (Brunei).

“Clearly it is worrying for Malaysia to remain stuck at where we were last year, and to not have improved like our neighbours,” he said.

“It shows the need to improve our property rights protection if we really want to become a high income nation by 2020 as envisaged in the New Economic Model (NEM).”

                                                              from freemalaysiatoday