Yerevan /Mediamax/. Armenia should elaborate a clear-cut and all-comprehensive strategy to support innovations.

Mediamax reports that the Chairman of “Economy and Values” Research Center Manuk Hergnyan said this today.

Presenting “National Competitiveness of Armenia – 2009” report in Yerevan today, Manuk Hergnyan stated that Armenia should improve interaction among the existing institutions, dealing with science, stimulate trust between business and scientific research and improve the opportunities to commercialize scientific developments.

According to the Global Competitiveness Report, as to innovations, the Armenian economy occupies the 108th place among 133 countries, having gone down two points as to the position on the same index in 2008. According to the report, Armenia faces serious challenges in the sphere of stimulating innovations.

Among obstacles along the path of developing innovative economy in Armenia, the report names the aged and limited human resources in the sphere of science and technologies, insufficient funding for education, scientific research and developments, practical lack of commercialized high-tech products and a low rating on intellectual property protection (107th place among 133 countries).

Authors of the report noted that there are no tax benefits in Armenia for realizing scientific developments and research and there is no venture capital to fund innovative technology projects.

“So far, the efforts, directed at developing innovations in Armenia, were mainly fragmentary and were short-term measures, while, as a priority direction for economy development, innovations require a single basis”, Manuk Hergnyan stated, noting the necessity to elaborate a single national innovative system in Armenia, aiming at stimulating innovations, especially in the sphere of production of goods and services.

The report suggests 4 starting strategies for developing innovative economy in Armenia, basing on an analysis of other countries’ practice, taking into account the local peculiarities.

Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsian, who was at the presentation of the report, also noted the necessity to establish interconnection between science and economy, aiming at diversifying the latter. “The global crisis once again pointed out for us the most vulnerable sides of the Armenian economy, dependence on private transfers and the high share of construction in GDP”, Tigran Sargsian stated.