Subsidies extended to Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities expanded by 50.61 percent in 2017, according to the latest data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Based on the preliminary results of the 2017 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry (ASPBI) for Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities Sector with Total Employment of 20 and Over, the subsidies for the sector increased to P92.02 million in 2017 from the P61.1 million posted in 2016.
“Subsidies are all special grants in the form of financial assistance or tax exemption or tax privilege given by the government to aid and develop an industry,” PSA explained.
PSA data showed that 94.92 percent of the subsidy amount in 2017 went to research and experimental development on social sciences and humanities. This amounted to P87.35 million.
The rest of the amount which reached P4.67 million, or 5.08 percent of the total, was extended to research and experimental development on natural sciences and engineering. This industry was not given any subsidy in 2016. The only industry that received a subsidy in that year was the activities of head offices.
The funding benefited some 2,735 employees conducting researches in the natural science, engineering, social sciences and humanities.
There are 2,000 employees in firms conducting researches in the natural science and engineering fields and 735 employees in the social science and humanities.
The total income of both industries reached P4.46 billion in 2017, a 69.89-percent increase from the P2.62 billion income of these industries in 2016.
The total income of these industries accounted for 5.43 percent of the P242.19-billion income in 2017 of the entire Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities Sector.
The income of the sector represented a contraction of 21.67 percent in 2017 compared to the P309.2 billion it posted in 2016.
Public investments in research and development (R&D), as well as science and technology (S&T) have always been low in the Philippines, according to former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan.
Balisacan also said the Philippines’s investments in S&T are considered the lowest among its neighbors.
He said the Philippines’s spending on Science and Technology, including research and development, does not even reach 1 percent of the country’s GDP.
Balisacan also said increasing the country’s investments in S&T to around 2 percent of GDP will boost the country’s bid to achieve first-world status.