Low innovation. Romania lags behind all other EU countries in terms of innovative firms

Romania ranks last among the 28 European Union member states in terms of innovative enterprises with the lowest share (10 percent) of such firms in the total number of companies.

According to Community Innovation Survey 2016 released on Tuesday by Eurostat, around half (51 percent) of the enterprises of 10 employees or more in the EU reported innovation activity during the period 2014-2016, slightly more than in the period 2012-2014 (49 percent).

“During the period 2014-2016, the highest proportions of enterprises with innovation activity were recorded in Belgium (68 percent of enterprises), Portugal (67 percent), Finland (65 percent), Luxembourg (64 percent) and Germany (64 percent). In the same period, the share was below 30 percent in Romania (10 percent), Poland (22 percent), Bulgaria (27 percent) and Hungary (29 percent),” Eurostat said.

The share of innovative enterprises increased or stayed the same in 20 EU countries and decreased in eight.

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Particularly strong increases were reported for Estonia, Portugal, Finland and Croatia. With increases from 54 percent to 67 percent in Portugal and from 55 percent to 65 percent in Finland, these two countries are now amongst the top five countries.

Romania cclimbed six places in Bloomberg’s 2019 Innovation Index up to the 29th place.

National data showed that showed that of the total of 28,809 enterprises in Romania, only 2,925 (10.2 percent) of them had any innovative activities, of which 2,795 were successful, while the rest abandoned or didn’t finalize their projects.