Technological innovation expenditure for 2012 is estimated at €156.8 million. 702 enterprises employing at least 10 persons, or 47.8 per cent of the total, undertook innovation activity, the National Statistics Office said today.

The remaining 767 enterprises did not pursue innovative activity. By type of innovation activity, 88 enterprises were engaged solely in technological innovation, 239 enterprises were engaged in non-technological innovation and the remaining 375 were involved in both technological and non-technological innovation.

Technological innovation expenditure for 2012 is estimated at €156.8 million. Of these, 9.9 per cent are attributed to printing and reproduction of recorded media. This was subsequently followed by computer programming, accounting for 6.8 per cent of the total expenditure.

By type of innovative expenditure, the acquisition of machinery and equipment is predominant with a total of €113.9 million (72.6 per cent), followed by intramural R&D amounting to €29.8 million, or 19.0 per cent.

33.0 per cent of all technological innovative enterprises found it was highly important to use information sources from within the enterprise or enterprise group, followed by suppliers of equipment, materials, components or software (23.9 per cent).

The survey revealed that 614 enterprises were engaged in organisational and/or marketing innovation, with organisational innovation predominant over marketing innovation. Non-technological innovation was predominant in wholesale and retail trade activities, followed by manufacturing and accommodation and food service activities respectively.

Setting specific goals to increase turnover and reduce costs proved to be highly important in all employment size classes.

Reduction of in-house operation costs across all employment size classes is prevalent where both innovative and non-innovative enterprises are concerned. Of the total enterprises under study, 648 enterprises (44.1 per cent) find this strategy as highly important for reaching enterprise’s goals.

This was closely followed by the reduction in costs of purchased materials, components or services, as well as the strategy of increasing the responsiveness of the organisation.

Strong competition in price (50.3 per cent) and product quality, reputation or brand (30.7 per cent) were the two main obstacles hindering enterprise’s goals for both innovative and non-innovative enterprises.

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