EU R&D intensity stable at 2% - Eurostat

(ANSA) - Brussels, November 30 - EU countries spent an average 2.03% of GDP in research and development (R&D) in 2014, with Italy at 1.29%, up slightly on 1.05% from 10 years ago, said European statistics bureau Eurostat on Monday.
    The EU average expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP - known as R&D intensity - remained stable compared to last year and was slightly up when compared to 10 years ago (1.76%), but was still not as high as other major economies such as South Korea (4.15%), Japan (3.47%) and the US (2.81% in 2012).
    It was higher, however, than Russia's 1.15% and close to that of China's 2.8%.
    Among individual EU countries, Finland had the highest R&D intensity at 3.17%, followed by Sweden at 3.16% and Denmark at 3.08%.
    On the opposite end of the scale, meanwhile, were Romania at 0.38%, bested only slightly by Cyprus at 0.47% and Latvia at 0.68%.
    One of the five main targets in the Europe 2020 strategy is that of increasing R&D intensity to 3% by the year 2020. The majority of R&D spending came from the private sector (64%), then the higher education sector at 23%, the public sector at 12% and the private non-profit sector at 1%, the report said.
    Italy's 1.29% figure is comprised of a 56% investment from the private sector, with the remaining 27% from the higher education sector, 14% from the public sector, and 3% from the private non-profit sector.