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Slovakia wants to increase expenditures on research, development

Xinhua, January 27, 2017 Adjust font size:

Slovakia wants to increase research and development spending to 1.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020, announced Slovak Education, Science, Research and Sport Minister Peter Plavcan on Thursday during a parliamentary education committee session.

According to Plavcan, it's close to being achieved, because the share of expenditure for research and development had increased and last year reached 1.19 percent of GDP.

However, Plavcan said that "if you look at international examples, it's still necessary to invest in research and development much more," adding they needed to encourage the private sector to support science to a greater extent.

Parliamentary education committee chairman Lubomir Petrak noted that the European average of expenditures on research and development represented around 2 percent of GDP.

"We are at 1.19 percent and the figure is going up, so the trends are set well. But we have to look closer at the private sector, which spent only slightly over 230,000 euros (245,000 U.S. dollars) on science and research in 2015," said Petrak.

According to other members of the committee, the government should help by allocating investment incentives particularly to those entrepreneurs who are willing to support research and development in Slovakia. Endit