Turkey first in research and development in OIC

ANKAR - Anatolia News Agency

This photo shows a scene from a laboratory.Turkey’s research and development budget was $9.6 billion. DAILY NEWS photo, Hasan ALTINIŞIK

Turkey ranks first among the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries in terms of the amount of money allocated to research and development studies and academic publications, while it’s one of the top three countries in areas like gross domestic product (GDP), high-tech export and foreign investment level.

Indonesia first

“Among these countries in terms of GDP, Turkey ranks second after Indonesia, but Turkey’s ranking is prominent when considered against Indonesia’s 240 million population. Turkey also comes third with regard to foreign investments, after Indonesia and Saudi Arabia,” said Savaş Alpay, Director General of OIC Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Center (SESRIC) said.

$9,6 billion budget

The OIC is considered the second largest international organization in the world after the United Nations.

Turkey has progressed a lot in terms of share of research and development spending, Alpay said, adding: “Turkey’s research and development budget ranks first at $9.6 billion and is over the average of 0.8 percent as a share of GDP among the 57 OIC countries. The world average is 2.00.” In terms of academic publications, Turkey leads with 23,000 scientific articles among 92,000 articles published by OIC countries in 2011, followed by Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan and Egypt, he said.

Drawing attention to the high gap between Islamic countries and the rest of the world with regard to high-technology exports, Alpay said OIC countries’ share of global high-technology exports was 4 percent and that Turkey was one of the top OIC members in this regard.

Alpay also remarked on the significance of Turkey’s social, cultural and political position among Islamic countries. “The number of tourists from the Middle East visiting Turkey reached 2 million in 2011, while it was only 700,000 in the early 2000s,” he said.