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Four of the top five preferred destinations for investors are located in Europe, according to the Milken Institute's Global Opportunities Index (GOI) report.
Denmark topped this year's rankings, taking first place in business perception, a measure of the ease of doing business in a country as well as other regulatory metrics.
The index includes 100 indicators in five categories: business perception, economic fundamentals, financial services, institutional framework, and international standards and policies.
Denmark ranked third in economic fundamentals, which captures macroeconomic performance, workforce talent, and “efforts to create a resilient and sustainable economy and society,” according to the report.
These are the top five countries that investors find attractive, according to the latest Israeli government report:
DenmarkSwedenFinlandUnited StatesUnited Kingdom
The United States moved up one place to fourth place this year, ranking highest in the Institutional Framework category, which tracks the protection state institutions provide for investors' rights and assets.
The country ranked fifth in the Financial Services category, which evaluates a country's overall financial system as well as access to finance.
Finland, which ranked third overall, ranked highest in the international standards and policies category, which evaluates economic openness and the extent to which the country's policies are compatible with global regulatory standards and intellectual property protection standards.
Emerging and developing Asia performed well compared to other R&D regions, attracting more than half (53.2%) of the money flowing into R&D countries between 2018 and 2022, according to the report.
“While advanced economies offer stability, investors seeking high growth returns continue to show interest in emerging and developing economies,” Maggie Swiatek, senior director of research at the Milken Institute, said in a statement.
Among Asian R&D economies, Malaysia has emerged as a favorite among investors and is ranked 27th in the world.
China has the “best investment conditions” of all R&D economies, and ranks well in institutional frameworks, partly due to the fact that the country “has very strong investor rights,” Swiatek said.
Malaysia is also the world's sixth-largest chip exporter, packing 23% of all U.S. chips, according to the New York Times.
Overall, R&D parks “offer attractive opportunities for investors interested in emerging markets with favorable growth potential,” the report said.
The report added that increasing tensions between the United States and China affected flows to Asian R&D economies, down 75.4% in 2022.
China, the world's second-largest economy, came in at 39. “That's actually quite high,” Swiatek told CNBC's Squawk Box Asia, adding that the economy is still an emerging and developed Asian economy according to the IMF.
“While China attracted more than half of all capital flows into Asia's R&D region between 2018 and 2022, its attractiveness to investors appears to have declined recently, likely due to rising geopolitical tensions with the United States,” the report said.
Here are the top 10 Asian countries for R&D on the Global Opportunities Index:
MalaysiaThailandChinaIndonesiaVietnamIndiaMongoliaSri LankaPhilippinesCambodia
Singapore topped Asia as a preferred country for investors in the region, and ranked fourteenth globally. Hong Kong and Japan ranked 15th and 16th, respectively, in Asia.
