WELLINGTON, April 26 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand business sector's research and development (R&D) expenditure continues to grow, reaching 3.7 billion NZ dollars (2.21 billion U.S. dollars) in 2023, according to the statistics department Stats NZ on Friday.
Business sector expenditure on R&D increased by 17 percent between 2022 and 2023, which was the largest annual increase since 2018, led by the services industries including computer services, wholesale trade, and scientific research, which grew 15 percent between the two years, Stats NZ said.
Of the 13 industries in the R&D survey, 12 had higher expenditure compared with 2022, it said.
The number of New Zealand businesses undertaking R&D in 2023 was 2,286, down by 2.3 percent from 2022, Stats NZ said, adding the average expenditure on R&D per business increased from 1.3 million NZ dollars (770,000 U.S. dollars) in 2022 to 1.6 million NZ dollars (950,000 U.S. dollars) in 2023, up by 20 percent.
New Zealand saw continuous growth in R&D expenditure, and the number of businesses doing R&D has remained fairly stable over the last three years, Stats NZ business performance manager Ricky Ho said.
"This suggests that businesses who are doing R&D are investing more," Ho said.
Wages and salaries comprised 60 percent of total R&D expenditure in 2023, or approximately 2.2 billion NZ dollars (1.31 billion U.S. dollars), up from 2 billion NZ dollars (1.19 billion U.S. dollars) in 2022, he said, adding while the number of people working on R&D has remained relatively similar to last year, the proportion of researchers has increased.
There was a total of 21,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff working on R&D in 2023, with the number of researchers increasing by 23 percent from 2022 to 14,000 FTEs, Ho said. ■