By Bahattin Gonultas
ANKARA
Spending in research and development in Turkey increased by 13.4 percent reaching 14.8 billion Turkish liras ($6.6 billion) last year compared with the previous year, the Turkish Statistics Institute said in a report on Wednesday.
But R&D spending still constituted only 0.95 percent of Turkey’s Gross Domestic Product in 2013, up from 0.92 percent in 2012.
The government is making a real effort in R&D, providing incentives in critical areas for growth. For example:
- The government is trying to increase pharmaceutical R&D in Turkey, and in 2012 it introduced a new investment incentives program that had four basic schemes to increase foreign investment.
- Government investment in defense R&D is one of its largest investments, at nearly $1 billion annually.
- The European Investment Bank has loaned €55 million to Turkey’s Tofas, a joint venture of Fiat and Turkey’s Koc Holding for extended R&D. Altogether, the company is investing more than €1 billion in research as it works to create a Turkish car brand.
The government itself has 26.6 percent of the total R&D spending, up from 21.1 percent in 2012.
But companies have the largest share of the R&D spending, with 48.9 percent last year, up from 46.8 percent in 2012.
General Electric, for example, is opening a Healthcare Life Sciences Technology laboratory in Istanbul. So it's not surprising that R&D is employing an increasing number of people in the country.
In terms of full-time employment, 112, 969 people worked in the R&D sector in 2013, an increase of 7.5 percent compared with 105,122 people in 2012.
According to the data, 51.7 percent of R&D personnel were employed by business enterprises, while 37.7 percent worked at universities.
Universities in the country financed 20.4 percent of R&D projects in 2013 -- down from 21.1 percent in 2012.
Turkey has a goal of reaching $500 billion in exports volume in 2023, the centennial year of the founding of modern Turkey.
"It is, however, not possible for Turkey to reach its huge economic goals until the year of 2023, the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, without making more R&D activities for more value-added production,” warns Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci.
The current economic plan developed by the government intends to beef up the country's R&D effort.
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