Germany is top in the field of R&D

According to Eurostat, the EU´s statistical office, Germany is among the leading countries as regards research and development in the fields of advanced and high technology. In 2004 there were 2.82 million people in the 25 EU member states working in research and development. Of these 23 percent were Germans, 17 percent French and Italians and Spaniard were 8 percent respectively.

Another finding of the statistics: 6.8 percent of the EU25´ total work force was employed by companies operating in the field of advanced and high technology in 2004. Thus these companies play an important role on the labour market. Those countries with the largest share of population working in these fields in 2004 were Germany (11.2 percent), the Czech Republic (9.0 percent), Slovakia (8.6 percent) and Slovenia (8.4 percent). The countries with the lowest share of their population working in the above-mentioned industries were Cyprus (1.2 percent), Luxembourg (1.3 percent), Latvia (1.4 percent) and Greece (2.2 percent).

At a regional level most people working in advanced and high technology could be found in Lombardy (444.000), in the Stuttgart region (415.000) and in Upper Bavaria (280.000). A diagram shows the six top regions in this respect. Among the 15 regions presenting the largest number of employees working in the above-mentioned industries seven can be found in Germany, four in Italy, two in France and in Spain and Denmark one respectively. GERMAN

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