UK not all doom and gloom

Citation

(2010), "UK not all doom and gloom", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 59 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2010.07959dab.007

UK not all doom and gloom

Article Type: News From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 59, Issue 4

A recent report from the OECD shows that Britain is well placed in science, technology and industry to emerge from the global crisis.

The research contains two pieces of evidence which will stun critics of the Government’s long-term management of the economy. It suggests that:

“The United Kingdom has the largest value of foreign direct investment (FDI) relative to GDP among G7 countries. For example, FDI inflows more than doubled in the first quarter of 2009, back to the same level as before the crisis. In the same quarter, FDI flows to the other G7 countries dropped by 63 per cent.”

“The United Kingdom registered the highest rate of productivity growth (2.4 per cent a year) among G7 countries over 1998-2008.”

According to the report, the UK is particularly strong at ‘Competing in the world economy’ where it holds the top spot in four out of nine categories and in “Connecting to global research” where it is top in three out of five categories. The UK is ahead of the OECD average in 74 per cent of categories. Meanwhile, the worst performance falls in the “Financing innovation” category where Britain is particularly poor on measures of “Business financed R&D.”