Kuala Lampur, Nov. 11 -- Unlike Malaysia, China, by contrast, has made innovation an industry in its own right. Its policy directive on integrating science with industrial innovation is explicit: enterprises lead, research serves application, and the entire chain from idea to market is treated as a production system to be optimised. Malaysia wants the same. The question is whether it is willing to do the unglamorous industrial work that China did.

Malaysia's innovation problem is not a shortage of ideas. The core challenge is the gap between R&D outputs and the ability of local technology to penetrate real markets. Malaysia spends only 1 per cent of GDP on R&D. But the private sector's share of R&D spending is disproportionately low, mea...