PETALING JAYA: Malaysia maintains 29th position out of 129 countries in International Property Rights Index (IPRI) 2022, despite a 0.399 score decrease to 6.3.
Malaysia was placed 8th in the Asia and Oceania region and 29th in the world. The year before Malaysia was ranked 7th regionally.
The IPRI was released by the Property Rights Alliance in Washington, DC, measuring the strength of physical and intellectual property rights as well as the legal and political environments that contain them.
Centre for Market Education (CME) observed that despite maintaining the world rank, the absolute IPRI score deteriorates by 6% mainly due to worsening political stability and the process of registration of physical property (including the incorporation of a firm).
While the general rank is 29, Malaysia is 41st in the world in terms of the legal and political environment due to its low rank in political stability (53), control of corruption (48) and rule of law (40).
Malaysia scored fairly well in defence of physical property rights, but the ranking dropped to 29th from 18th in 2021, mainly because of the process for registering properties.
CME CEO Dr Carmelo Ferlito said the deterioration of the score sends a message that the government needs to take into account political stability, control of corruption and the difficulties in registering property.
“At the light of the slight deterioration in the regional ranking, signalling that our neighbours are fighting to improve,” he added.
The three countries that achieved the highest property rights protections are Finland, Singapore, and Switzerland. The 129 countries included in the 2022 IPRI represent 93.91% of the world population and 98.12% of the global gross domestic product (GDP).
