In times of crisis, large EU companies reduce investment in Research and Development (R&D) less than US competitors, reveals the Commission’s latest index, referring to amounts spent in 2009, where PT is the best Portuguese company classified.
In the 2010 EU Panel on the investment of the industry in R&D, published today by the European Commission, Portugal Telecom occupies the sixth place in the table related to the fixed communications sector, whose podium is occupied by the British BT, followed by France Telecom and Telecom Italy.
In the joint analysis of the various sectors of the industry, the Portuguese ranks 89th in the European table, in a list that is led by Volkswagen, with 5.8 billion euros of investment in research. Nokia is the highest ranked technology, ranking second in the industry’s global table, with 4.9 billion euros invested.
Portugal Telecom enters the ranking with an investment of 213 million euros. Among the Portuguese companies to be present in the table of the biggest European investors are the pharmaceutical company BIAL (59.75 million euros), Caixa Geral de DepĂłsitos (58 million euros). The table can be consulted below and also includes the presence, in the IT area, of Novabase, which occupies the 6th place in the ranking of the Portuguese and the 16th, at European level, in the sector dedicated to software services.
In the statement accompanying the publication of the report, the Commission highlights the investment in investment by European companies, which, although it fell by 2.6 percent, was above that recorded in the United States, where the reduction was twice as high (5 ,1%).
At the global level, the results are still more encouraging, with a reduction of just 1.9 percent – due to the action of markets such as the Japanese, where companies maintained investment levels. Toyota established itself as the largest investor in R&D worldwide, allocating € 6.8 billion to research.
Editorial Note: The news was corrected in one of the mentioned values.
