Share of innovative enterprises up 4.4 pct in 2016-2018 from 2014-2016

The share of companies that introduced new or substantially improved products or business processes to the market was 14.6 pct, in 2016-2018, which represents an increase of 4.4 percentage points compared to 2014-2016, shows the provisional results of the statistical research on innovation in business enterprises, published on Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

In the analyzed period, the share of innovative enterprises increased compared to the period 2014-2016, both in the industry sector and in the services sector. In the industry sector the growth was 2.8 percentage points, and in the services sector 1.6 percentage points.

According to the INS data, between 2016 and 2018, large enterprises, with at least 250 employees, were twice as innovative as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Of the total number of large enterprises, 27.9 pct were innovative, while innovation in SMEs stood at 13.9 pct. Compared to 2014-2016, the share of large innovative enterprises increased by 10 percentage points, from 17.9 pct to 27.9 pct, and innovative SMEs increased by 4.1 percentage points, from 9.8 pct to 13.9 pct.

According to the INS, 6.4 pct of total companies were innovative only in terms of new or significantly improved products, 4.5 pct applied only for business process innovations and 3.5 pct implemented both product and business process innovations.

The increase in the share of product innovative companies is due to the increase of the share of innovative companies of both goods and services. In the period 2016-2018, the share of goods innovative companies was 5.4 percentage points higher than in 2014-2016 (8 pct versus 2.6 pct). Innovative enterprises in the service industry also had an increase of 4.9 percentage points (6.3 pct compared to 1.4 pct).

The share of innovative companies that introduced "new products on the market", of the total number of enterprises, doubled in the period 2016-2018 compared to 2014-2016 (2.9 pct compared to 1.4 pct). The share of companies that introduced "new products for the enterprise" is about 3.5 times higher than in the period 2014-2016, namely there was an increase from 2.6 pct to 9.1 pct. The largest increase, from 7.5 pct to 20 pct, was recorded by large companies, with at least 250 employees. AGERPRES