SHANNON/ANKARA - Turkish Industry and Trade Minister Ali Coskun attended Informal Meeting of European Union (EU) Ministers on ''Innovation for a Competitive Europe'' in Ireland.
Coskun told A.A correspondent on Monday that it was the first meeting of ministers of EU member and candidate countries which was held during the term presidency of Ireland.
Noting said that especially competition issue was taken up during the meeting, Coskun said that important scientists and experts who were studying competition issue attended the meeting.
Coskun said, ''we have made discussions on this issue with ministers after the statements of these scientists. It was a very good conference. Especially competitiveness issue gains importance within globalization process in the world. The condition of small and medium scale enterprises is being discussed within this direction. One of the most important issues for competition is research and development activities. Under Lisbon Agreement, member countries should reserve three percent of their gross national products for research and development activities until 2010. This ratio is nearly 0.6 percent in Turkey at the moment. Thus, we have to increase this ratio until 2010.''
(GC-AY) 26.04.2004