To boost the country's dwindling market
ANGARA URGES TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION THROUGH INVESTMENTS ON RESEARCH AND DEVEOPMENT

With the current economic downturn, Senator Edgardo J. Angara today suggests to follow the steps of the world's largest emerging markets - Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) through investing on research and development and technological innovations.

"Devoting attention to research and development in the country presents the awareness that it is imperative to encourage innovation to boost market. The example that is being set by these BRIC nations show that there's a possibility to turn the economy upside down by investing and improving the resources that the country have," said Angara, Chair of the Senate Committee on Finance.

To note, these BRIC nations explored the possibility of establishing a new reserve currency to reduce dependency on the U.S. dollar. China now holds the largest foreign currency reserves of about $2 trillion. India, on the other hand, is the world's leader in terms of services. In this respect, still the nations Brazil and Russia are set to supply many of the raw materials to these two huge importing countries.

Angara informed, "The key element in the BRIC success is innovation. Driven by the need to innovate, China's spending on R&D has increased by more than twenty per cent each year since 1999, enabling science and technology to contribute as much as 60% in their economic growth."

He added, "As a developing country, the Philippines should take note of the priorities of these aggressive countries. The interest given to technological expansion proves to be a major accomplishment as shown by their rising status in the global economic milieu. These BRIC countries are beginning to create the idea that countries of the industrialized west are no longer the only ones that account for the world's production capacity and consumption."

A notable global investment and banking firm, Goldman Sachs coined the term BRIC nations to describe the growing power of emerging market economies. BRIC was described to represent the nations which presently account for 15 percent of the $60.7 trillion global economy. Interestingly, Goldman Sachs even predicts that in 20 years, the four countries could together dwarf the G7, and that China's economy will overtake the United States in total size.

"Globalization has shifted the focus from comparative advantage based on land, natural resources, financial capital and labor - to competitive advantage based on sophisticated knowledge, cutting-edge technologies and new products and services. Thus, the need to create national policies to develop our technological capability to help in the goal of promoting our country's innovation system and to be globally competitive," explained Angara.