Bulgaria 3rd from Last by Share of Innovative Enterprises in EU

The share of innovative enterprises in the EU shrank to 48.9% in the period 2010-2012, according to Eurostat.

Only 27.4% of the companies in Bulgaria reported innovation activity during the period 2010-2012, placing Bulgaria among the three lowest-performing EU Member States by this indicator, the other two being Romania (20.7%) and Poland (23%), according to the Innovation Survey 2012 published by Eurostat on Thursday.

Bulgaria’s share of innovative enterprises was highest in the period 2006-2008, at 30.8%, after which it dropped to 27.1% over the next two years, and then registered a slight uptick to 27.4% in the period 2010-2012.

However, Bulgaria is among the 5 countries to register an increase in the share of innovative enterprises compared to the period 2008-2010, the other four being Malta, the United Kingdom, Hungary and Latvia.

The proportion of innovative enterprises in the EU28 dropped in 2010-2012 compared with both 2006-2008 (51.5% innovative enterprises) and the peak recorded in 2008-2010 (52.8%). This pattern was observed in the majority of Member States.

Between 2010 and 2012, innovation in EU enterprises related mainly to organisation (27.5% of all enterprises), followed by marketing innovations (24.3%), product innovations (23.7%) and process innovations (21.4%).

During the period 2010-2012, the highest proportions of enterprises with innovation activity were recorded in Germany (66.9% of enterprises), Luxembourg (66.1%) and Ireland (58.7%).

Compared with 2006-2008, the share of innovative enterprises in the EU28 decreased by 2.6 percentage points in 2010-2012, from 51.5% to 48.9%.

The largest falls in the proportion of innovative enterprises were observed inCyprus (56.1%in 2006-2008 compared with 42.1% in 2010-2012, or -14.0 percentage points), Germany (-13.0 pp), Romania (-12.6 pp), the Czech Republic (-12.1 pp) and Spain (-9.9 pp).

On the opposite end of the scale, the share of innovative enterprises increased the most in 2010-2012 compared with 2006-2008 in Malta (from 37.4% in 2006-2008 to 51.4% in 2010-2012, or +14.0 percentage points), followed by the Netherlands (+6.5 pp), Latvia (+6.1 pp) and the United Kingdom (+4.7 pp).

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