South Africa boosts R&D

South Africa spent approximately 1% of GDP on research and development R&D in 2007/8. An increased expenditure on R&D in relation to GDP is a good indication of the competitiveness of a country's economy. Most R&D in South Africa is in engineering sciences, which accounts for 22.5% of the total R&D, followed by the natural sciences with 20.4% and the medical and health sciences and ICTs, both at 14%.

Highly competitive countries such as Sweden spend up to 3.6% of GDP. Other such countries are Korea with 3.47%, Japan with 3.44% and the United States of America with 2.68%. The European Union has set a goal of 3% of GDP by the year 2010. In 2007, the average for the 27 European Union member states was 1.77%.

In comparison with other middle and lower-middle income countries, South Africa spends proportionately more on R&D than Argentina (0.51%) and India (0.80%) but less than China (1.49%) and the Russian Federation (1.12%).

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