Worldwide corporate investment in research and development grew by ten percent last year, faster than that of the previous year, said a study released by the European Commission on Friday.
Spending on research and development by European companies increased by 7.4 percent.
The world's biggest investor in research and development last year was the pharmaceutical drug giant Pfizer of the United States, with an annual expenditure of 5.8 billion euros, while the top EU company was German car maker DaimlerChrysler, which spent 5.2 billion euros, according to the 2007 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard.
The pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector invested the most in research, overtaking the technology hardware and equipment sector. Many pharmaceutical companies showed a strong increase, such as U.S. drug maker Merck, which spent 24.3 percent more in 2006.
The chemical industry showed a strong recovery in research investment, with an increase of 9.8 percent, compared to the negative growth of the previous year. The commission said it was partly due to the process of acquisitions and concentration in the sector.
Aerospace and defense raised its investment by 12.5 percent, continuing the trend of strong growth in previous years. The sector's most representative companies, EADS and Boeing increased their R&D investment by 21.2 percent and 47.7 percent respectively.
On the whole, corporate investment in R&D last year increased faster than in 2005, when the growth rate was 5.3 percent.
The EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard is published annually by the commission. The figures are derived from company accounts for the previous financial year and indicate the investment made by a company from its own funds.
The scoreboard comprises the top 1000 research and development companies from the EU and the top 1000 companies from the rest of the world. Together, the 2000 companies invested 372 billion euros in R&D, estimated to represent more than 85 percent of corporate expenditure on R&D worldwide.
Among the top ten R&D investors last year, three were EU companies, namely DaimlerChrysler, GlaxoSmithKline, a world leading healthcare company headquartered in Britain, and German engineering giant Siemens.
Besides number one Pfizer, there were three U.S. companies in the top positions, namely Ford Motor, Johnson & Johnson and Microsoft.
However, the report showed the investment in research and development by EU companies was still growing at a lower rate than their non-EU counterparts.
This difference was primarily explained by a growth rate in research and development-intensive sectors outside the EU of almost twice that within the EU, the commission said.
The scoreboard also showed an upward trend the profitability of companies all over the world.
Sales of EU companies grew by ten percent, while sales of U.S. and Japanese companies rose by about 8 percent. The profitability of EU companies increased 11.6 percent, placing them between U.S companies which recorded an increase of 12.9 percent and Japanese companies with 7.4 percent.
Source: Xinhua
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