KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 2 — Malaysia came in second among Southeast Asian nations, pipped only by Singapore in the first global human capital rankings by the World Economic Forum (WEF) released yesterday.

In the WEF Human Capital Index (HCI) 2013, which measures a country’s ability to develop and nurture healthy, educated and able workers, Malaysia emerged top among upper-middle income nations, beating China, neighbouring Thailand, Costa Rica and Panama.

Malaysia came in 22^nd out of 122 countries surveyed globally, which according to the WEF report, represents over 90 per cent of the world’s population.

The WEF measures how well a country does in four areas it calls “pillars”, namely access and quality of education from primary all the way to university-level; the physical and mental health of its people from childhood to adult; its workforce, which it attempts to quantify based on experience, talent, training and skills mismatches among working-age populations; and environment factors such as the law and infrastructure that enable returns on human capital.

In the Asia-Pacific region, Malaysia placed fifth, after Singapore, New Zealand, Japan and Australia in that order.

Malaysia also scored better than economic giants South Korea and China.

For the four index pillars, Malaysia was ranked 34^th in education, 39^th in health and wellness, 18^th in workforce and employment, and 22^nd in enabling environment.

The HCI was based on publicly available data from international organisations such as the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation and the International Labour Organisation.

In the Grant Thornton Global Dynamism Index 2013 released last month, Malaysia was ranked the second most dynamic country within  the Association of Southeast Asian Nations after Singapore and 13^th globally, an increase two places from the previous year.

The GDI measures a combination of factors that highlight countries’ growth potential, by looking at the changes in an economy over the past 12 months.

Malaysia’s strongest performance were in the areas of economics and growth (8^th), labour and human capital (11^th), and financing environment (16^th).

“The region has a diverse spread of wealth, comprising five of the sample’s high-income economies, four upper-middle income, nine lower-middle economies as well as Bangladesh and Cambodia, two low-income countries,” said the report here on the Asia-Pacific region.

“As a region, Asia ranks third overall, behind North America and Europe and Central Asia.”

The first ever HCI was topped by Switzerland, which also ranked first in the health, and workforce and employment pillars. 

Second place went to Finland, which topped the other two pillars of education and enabling environment.