Bulgaria needs to boost innovations: president

SOFIA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said here Friday that his country needed to boost innovations because they are the key to enhancing the potential of the national economy.

"Innovations today are the key to tapping the potential of the Bulgarian economy and raising its efficiency and competitiveness," Radev said while addressing the 13th National Innovation Forum.

Innovations were the best bond between business, education and institutions, and a criterion of the modernity of a country, Radev said.

New technologies and new productions that deliver greater added value could be implemented through innovations, and innovations are one of the factors to alleviate the negative effects of the demographic crisis, he added.

The host of this forum was a proof that business, education and institutions had come to realize that they needed to unite their efforts, Radev said at the event, attended also by the country's Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev, and heads of innovative companies and universities.

"Only in this way we can multiply the talent of our nation, and achieve the successes that Bulgaria has such a huge need at the moment," Radev said.

The president said that, according to some rankings, Bulgaria was still in the group of "timid innovators" and there was no sustainable and efficiently functioning innovation system.

Research and development spending was still far from the average for the European Union (EU), Radev said, adding that funding for innovations came mainly from foreign sources and it hindered the introduction of clear national priorities and policy in this area. Enditem