Research and development in the Philippines | The Manila Times

RESEARCH and development (R&D) are crucial to a country's innovation, knowledge economy and economic growth. The R&D systems of export-oriented countries ramped up their value-added supply chains with applied knowledge in universities and research institutes and were assimilated and commercialized by major industries. This model made Japan, China and India prosperous today. In the first of four charts below from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (Unesco) Institute of Statistics in 2023, it showed that Japan led other Asia-Pacific countries in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) with $4.21 trillion, followed by India with $3.55 trillion and China with $1.78 trillion.

As you can see, the Philippines' GDP was only $437 billion, trailing behind these three economic behemoths, as well as neighbors like Thailand ($515 billion) and Singapore ($501 billion). These countries recorded such economic growth because of their emphasis on R&D investments. The Philippines, on the one hand, has the lowest average R&D expenditure at 0.24 percent of GDP. On the other, Japan invested 3.24 percent; China, 2.26 percent; and Singapore, 2.0 percent. See the comparison below.