In relation to my previous post on global competitiveness, and how important R&D spending is for global competitiveness, here is a chart showing R&D spending as a percentage of GDP for some OECD countries.
According to the OECD (see here):
"Expenditure on research and development (R&D) is a key
indicator of government and private sector efforts to obtain competitive
advantage in science and technology."
As the chart shows, Canada spends less than the OECD average on R&D. Canadian spending on R&D peaked in 2001, just before Nortel Networks imploded. Since then, however, the trend has been down. In 2010, R&D expenditure as a % of GDP was 1.8% for Canada and 3.8% for Finland. The private and public sectors in Canada need to spend more on basic R&D. With the recent troubles that RIM is having I fear that private sector spending on R&D in Canada is about to take a further hit.
Mark Carney is right to criticize Canadian corporations about their spending habits and sitting on piles of "dead cash". Technology uptake and productivity have never been strong suits of Canadian companies and notwithstanding the large number of SMEs in this country, there is a pervasive reluctance to invest in R&D here hence the relative dearth of clusters compared to other nations. There is, however, no reluctance on the part of management to expect employees to roll up their sleeves and work long hours.
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