ANKARA: Turkey’s spending on research and development (R&D) investments dropped by 3.73 percent from TL 5.83 billion in 2013 to TL 5.61 billion in 2014, the national data complier has said.
According to a recent report published by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) on Thursday, the share of funds drawn from the central government budget for R&D investments accounted for 0.32 percent of Turkey’s gross domestic product (GDP), a considerable decrease from the corresponding rate of a year ago, which was 0.37 percent.
R&D outlays made up 1.12 percent of the government budget in 2014.
In the meantime, the amount of indirect R&D support, including tax incentives, exemptions, reductions in R&D workers’ income taxes and social security contributions, totaled TL 1.36 million in 2014.
Thursday’s data also said the government is expected to allocate TL 5.85 billion for direct R&D investments in 2015 while indirect R&D support was estimated to be TL 1.5 million.
