One in three Cypriot enterprises promoted innovation in 2014-2016

Among enterprises with 10 or more employees in Cyprus, 36.5% of the enterprises covered had some form of innovation activity during the period 2014-2016, according to the results of the Innovation Survey carried out by the Statistical Service.
 
According to a relevant announcement, in Industry this percentage was 38.1% while in Services it was 35.6%. An 8.2% of the population of enterprises was involved only in (product and/or process)  technological innovation, 7.3% only in non-technological (organisational and/or marketing) innovation and 21% in both technological and non-technological innovation.
 
With regard to the size-class breakdown, the larger the enterprise the more likely it was to have had some form of  innovation activity  during this period. This was valid for 33.3% of enterprises  employing 10-49 persons, for 49.8% of enterprises with 50-249 employees and for 62.5% of enterprises with 250 and more employees.
 
Among the hampering factors to innovation with the highest degree of  importance, innovative enterprises cited the existence of too much competition in the enterprise’s market (47.3%), too high innovation costs (36.1%), the lack of internal finance for innovation (35.2%), the difficulties in  obtaining government grants or subsidies for innovation (34.2%), the lack of credit or private equity  (29.3%), the uncertain market demand for the enterprise`s ideas for innovations (20.7%) and others (26.1%).
 
Enterprises with no innovation activity reported that the factors with the highest degree of importance in preventing innovation were low demand for innovations in the enterprise’s market (37.6%), the existence of prior innovations (30%), the existence of very little competition in the enterprise’s market (24%), the lack of good ideas for innovations (13.7%), the lack of internal finance for innovation (5.1%), the difficulties in obtaining government grants or subsidies for innovation (4.6%), the very high innovation costs (4.3%), the lack of credit or private equity (4%) and others (13.8%).