Romania is the country that invests the least in the European Union in research-development-innovation, and the amounts allocated from the national budget are absolutely ridiculous from this point of view, declared, on Monday, the deputy general secretary of NATO, Mircea Geoană, quoted by Agerpres.
“Not everything that happens in North America or Europe is the peak. China is innovating at an accelerated pace, Japan, Korea, the others are innovating at an accelerated impact. What is likely to happen in the next period is a matter of a hyper-acceleration of the competition for superiority in these technologies. These countries have, without exception, at the central level of the Government, at the presidency, depending on the constitutional organization of each – South Korea with a very powerful president, Japan with a first – a very powerful minister – a Chief Innovation Officer, they have fiscal levers to stimulate the private sector in technology and innovation. Do not consider my words any kind of political apropos for the near future in Romania. If in the 60s, a percentage of 90% among the technologies used for defense and national security were produced with government support, and NASA is the best-known example, today, 90% of the same technologies are produced in the private sector. So the connection between the Government, the private sector and society, in general, represents an obligation we have to be able to continue working in this way,” said Geoană.
The NATO official added that Romania invests the least in the European Union in Research-Development-Innovation.
“I regret it in a way, and it’s not a criticism, but I look a little at the aggregated figures, that Romania is the country in the European Union that invests the least in Research-Development-Innovation. The amounts allocated from the Romanian national budget are absolutely ridiculous from this point of view. You can’t be at the top just by hoping that someone transfers your technology from somewhere else, if you don’t produce your own innovation and are not part of the innovation ecosystem. Romania is at the very bottom of the innovation side Romania, foreign and Romanian, invests the least in Innovation, Research and Development. Without giving fiscal policy recommendations, which is not my job, when a discussion started about the reduction of tax facilities for IT&C in Romania, it was perhaps too brutal. I, if I were to recommend something or if I were to think of something, it would be to go with aggressive tax incentives for R&D where the private sector, after all, which produces most of these innovations, is in a competition of fierce innovation in the military field as well,” also stressed Mircea Geoană.