Hürriyet Daily News - The Turkish government aims to increase its budget allocation for research and development (R&D) to 3 percent, valued at approximately USD 60 billion, by 2023, Technology Minister Nihat Ergün said yesterday.
Despite Türkiye’s fiscal conservatism in light of recent global crises, it did not reduce its budget allocation to R&D and instead raised its allocation, Ergün said during the Information Economy Global Forum organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Turkish Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology, in Istanbul.
The budget allocation for R&D has doubled in the last 11 years, reaching almost 1 percent, he said. Türkiye’s revenue rose from USD 230 billion to USD 800 billion in the last decade, he said. “We aim to raise our GDP to USD 2 trillion by 2023 and R&D expenditure share to 3 percent. By way of this target, we’ll become a country that will be spending USD 60 billion on R&D projects by 2023,” he said.
The country provides special investment incentives in the form of tax exemptions and cuts as well as financial support to improve the technological competitiveness and innovation capacity of vital industries.