China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second biggest spender on industrial research and development (R&D), a report by the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) said on Monday.
Low- and middle-income economies have increased their share of global R&D expenditure by 13 percentage points between 1993 and 2009. China accounts for most of this increase, propelling the country to the world s second largest R&D spender in 2009, according to the report.
Chinese investment in R&D rose to 12.8 percent of the world total in 2009, up from just 2.2 percent in 1993, said the report.
China aims to put 2.2 percent of its GDP into research and development by 2015, says a draft of the country's 12th Five-Year Plan.
Most R&D spending still takes place in high-income countries around 70 percent of the world total. They spend around 2.5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on R&D, more than double the rate of middle-income economies.
The United States held on to the top position in the global R&D rankings. But its share fell 3.4 percentage points to 33.4 percent.
The report also showed sharp rises in the number of Chinese applications for patents and trademarks, to protect innovations produced by Chinese research.
