Singapore reports strong public sector commitment to R&D

By eGovAsia Editors | Dec 22, 2010

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SINGAPORE -- Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research reported in its government portal that the country’s public expenditure on R&D (PUBERD) recorded a new high of S$2.3 billion or 0.87 percent of gross domestic product GDP in 2009.

The data, which was based on the latest National Survey of R&D, 2009, also showed that the latest PUBERD registered a 15.4 percent increase from S$2 billion in 2008, despite the 3.1 percent shrinkage in Singapore’s GDP from 2008 to 2009.

"The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of PUBERD from 2000 to 2009 was 8.2 percent — a good indication of the government’s commitment to investing in R&D and Singapore’s strong and steady progress in building up public sector R&D capabilities," the report said.

According to the report, the number of research scientists and engineers in both the public and private sectors had also increased by 3.4 percent from 25,745 in 2008 to 26,608 in 2009.

"Moving forward, Singapore remains committed to continuing its strong investment in R&D.  The government has pledged one percent of the nation’s GDP, or S$16.1 billion, to support R&D in Singapore from 2011 to 2015 under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2015 plan," it said.