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Cape Town - South Africa's spending on research and development (R&D) has dropped slightly in terms of GDP for the second year running.
Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor told journalists at Parliament on Thursday that while R&D spending rose in nominal terms, from R18.6bn in 2007/08 to R21bn in 2008/09, gross spending as a percentage of GDP slipped from 0.93% to 0.92%.
"We are worried that this percentage of GDP, which is the most-widely accepted indicator of competitiveness of a country's economy, is not growing at the level that we wanted to," Pandor said.
Her department has set an R&D target of 1% of GDP.
The figures are contained in the 2008/09 National Survey of Research and Experimental Development, tabled by Pandor at the media briefing.
In terms of GDP, spending on R&D rose steadily from 1997 (0.60%) to a high in 2006 of 0.95%, but has dropped over the past two years.
The survey notes that "few OECD (the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries have a GERD (gross expenditure on R&D) equivalent to less than 1% of GDP".
A table in the document issued by the department shows spending by Sweden, Finland, Japan and the United States on R&D exceeds 3% of GDP.
Pandor said R&D spending in South Africa needed to increase by R1.7bn to reach the 1% target.
The survey results would now be probed "to establish why we're not meeting that 1% target and to look at where it is we may be falling behind".
She said South Africa's skills shortage was a "major problem" in this regard. Another key constraint was the low proportion of researchers in relation to the total employed population.
According to the survey, South Africa has 1.4 researchers per 1 000 workers, compared to China (1.9), Argentina (2.9), Australia (8.5) and Japan (11), among others.
Of the R21bn spent on R&D in 2008/09, the bulk - R12.3bn - was spent by business. In nominal terms, this was an increase of about 14.8% over the previous year.
Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor told journalists at Parliament on Thursday that while R&D spending rose in nominal terms, from R18.6bn in 2007/08 to R21bn in 2008/09, gross spending as a percentage of GDP slipped from 0.93% to 0.92%.
"We are worried that this percentage of GDP, which is the most-widely accepted indicator of competitiveness of a country's economy, is not growing at the level that we wanted to," Pandor said.
Her department has set an R&D target of 1% of GDP.
The figures are contained in the 2008/09 National Survey of Research and Experimental Development, tabled by Pandor at the media briefing.
In terms of GDP, spending on R&D rose steadily from 1997 (0.60%) to a high in 2006 of 0.95%, but has dropped over the past two years.
The survey notes that "few OECD (the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries have a GERD (gross expenditure on R&D) equivalent to less than 1% of GDP".
A table in the document issued by the department shows spending by Sweden, Finland, Japan and the United States on R&D exceeds 3% of GDP.
Pandor said R&D spending in South Africa needed to increase by R1.7bn to reach the 1% target.
The survey results would now be probed "to establish why we're not meeting that 1% target and to look at where it is we may be falling behind".
She said South Africa's skills shortage was a "major problem" in this regard. Another key constraint was the low proportion of researchers in relation to the total employed population.
According to the survey, South Africa has 1.4 researchers per 1 000 workers, compared to China (1.9), Argentina (2.9), Australia (8.5) and Japan (11), among others.
Of the R21bn spent on R&D in 2008/09, the bulk - R12.3bn - was spent by business. In nominal terms, this was an increase of about 14.8% over the previous year.
