Close to half of larger Cypriot enterprises innovate

According to the results of the Innovation Survey carried out by the Statistical Service among enterprises with 10 or more employees, 48.4% of enterprises had some form of innovation activity during the period 2000-2002.

Among industrial enterprises, this proportion stood at 50.6% compared to 46.1% in the services sector.

The Statistcal Service notes that these figures compare favourably with the corresponding proportions for the 15 EU Member States in the period 1998-2000, which were 44% for the total, 47% for industry and 40% for services.

With regard to the size-class breakdown, the larger the enterprise the more likely it was to have had some form of innovation activity during the period: 45,4% for enterprises employing 10-49 persons, 57,3% for enterprises with 50-249 employees and 90,6% for enterprises with 250 and more employees.

According to 43.3% of all enterprises with innovation activity, innovation had a high impact on improving their production flexibility. About 39.3% reported a high impact on increasing their production capacity, 38.0% on improving the quality of their goods and services, 21.4% on increasing the range of their goods or services, 16.9% on increasing their market share and 13.0% on reducing labour costs per unit produced.

Among enterprises with no innovation activity, the main hampering factors declared as having a high degree of impact on innovation were the high costs (24.1%), the excessive perceived economic risks (17.9%), the lack of appropriate sources of finance (10.6%), the lack of qualified personnel (9.6%), organisational rigidities within the enterprise (6.1%) and others.