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Thursday, June 15, 2006
Gov’t woos private cos. to invest in S&T sector
The government is urging the private sector to help the country achieve a “knowledge-based” econ-omy by investing more in science and technology.
Department of Science and Technology (DOST) 7 Director Rene Burt Llanto said a “knowledge-based” economy will enable the country to be globally competitive as it copes with a world driven by technological innovations.
“A knowledge-based economy is said to be an economy based on the production, distribution and use of knowledge and information as reflected by growing high-technology investments, high-technology industries, demand for more highly skilled labor and associated productivity gains,” he said.
Paradigm
“In this new emerging paradigm, investments in research and development, education and training and new managerial work structures have become important factors,” he added.
He said the government, through DOST, is implementing three major science and technology programs to improve the country’s status in the sector.
These programs are the Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (Setup), the Technology Incubation for Commercialization (Technicom) and the Technology Support Program for E-Governance.
Llanto said a study conducted in 2002 by Sunil Mani, a research fellow from the Institute for New Technologies at the United Nations University in Ma-astricht, Netherlands, revealed that the total investments of the Philippines on research and development in science and technology was only .15 percent of its gross domestic product.
The percentage is way below the one percentage level recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, he said.
Pale
“Our investment rate pales in comparison with those of our neighboring countries, not to mention that they have higher GDP values,” Llanto said during the Cebu leg of a seminar organized by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines and the World Intellectual Property Organization held at the Cebu Midtown Hotel last Thursday.
Mani’s study also said the Philippines lack investment in technology development and only have a few highly knowledgeable scientists and technologists involved in technology development at the enterprise level.
The study also noted that the country’s institutional infrastructure is not strong enough to help high-technology sectors improve their value.
Llanto said Setup was specifically designed in response to President Arroyo’s call to focus government assistance on small and medium-scale enterprises. The program involves technology transfer activities of DOST and related agencies that are focused on priority sectors.
The Technicom, on the other hand, is a comprehensive and unified strategy to enhance technology development for commercialization. It aims to speed up the transfer and commercialization of promising studies and innovation by government research development institutes, academe and the private sector. (JBN)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 15, 2006 issue)
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