Growth of innovative commodities made 66 percent in 2011

Growth of innovative commodities made 66 percent in 2011, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Kazakhstan Minister of Industry and New Technologies Asset Issekeshev as saying at the government meeting. Issekeshev presented a draft concept of innovative development until 2020. “The share of innovation-intensive companies went up to 5.7 percent in 2011, the volume of innovative commodities grew by 65.9 percent and the local costs for researches and developments increased by 29.5 percent,” Issekeshev said. He added that comparing to the global level 5.7 percent was still a low value. However, the average level of innovative activity was less than 4 percent in the last few years. Minister stressed that thanks to the consistent measures taken by the government under the State Program of Accelerated Industrial-Innovative Development and thanks to the goals set by the President, Kazakhstan managed to reach a significant increase in 2011 and get to the historical maximum in the last 9 years. Issekeshev also noted that the process of forming up a full-scale innovative systems takes decades in the world. According to the Minister, Kazakhstan is already building a required legislative background and expands the tools for the state support to innovations. “A required institutional framework has been formed up: there is a specialized institute for development of innovations, National Technical Development Agency, technology parks and design centers are operating. The number of commercialization offices keeps growing in the universities every year,” Issekeshev said. He added that thanks to those measures, there was a positive tendency in development of innovations, while business and the community showed more interest to the innovative activities. By Aidana Ussupova