The share of innovative enterprises increased in Malta from 37.4 per cent in 2006-2008 to 51.4 per cent in 2010-2012, or +14.0 percentage points, according to Eurostat.

This was the highest rate of all the member states with the Netherlands in second place (+6.5 pp) and Latvia in third (+6.1 pp).

Compared with 2008-2010, the proportion of innovative enterprises in 2010-2012 only went up in five member states: Malta, the UK, Hungary, Latvia and Bulgaria.

Compared with 2006-2008, the share of innovative enterprises in the EU28 decreased by 2.6 percentage points in 2010-2012, from 51.5 per cent to 48.9 per cent.

The largest falls in the proportion of innovative enterprises were observed in Cyprus (-14.0 percentage points), Germany (-13.0 pp), Romania (-12.6 pp), the Czech Republic (-12.1 pp) and Spain (-9.9 pp).

In the EU28, just under half (48.9 per cent) of enterprises of 10 employees or more reported innovation activity during the period 2010-2012.

The proportion of innovative enterprises in the EU28 dropped in 2010-2012 compared with both 2006-2008 (51.5 per cent innovative enterprises) and the peak recorded in 2008-2010 (52.8 per cent). This pattern was observed in the majority of member states.

Innovation activities refer to product and process innovation as well as organisational and marketing innovation.

Between 2010 and 2012, innovation in EU enterprises related mainly to organisation (27.5 per cent of all enterprises), followed by marketing innovations (24.3 per cent), product innovations (23.7 per cent) and process innovations (21.4 per cent). Enterprises could have introduced innovations in more than one single area. In Malta, 35.9 per cent innovated in products and/or processes, and 44.4 per cent in organisation and marketing.

During the period 2010-2012, the highest proportions of enterprises with innovation activity were recorded in Germany (66.9 per cent of enterprises), Luxembourg (66.1 per cent) and Ireland (58.7 per cent).

On the contrary, less than 30 per cent of enterprises had innovation activity in that period in Romania (20.7 per cent), Poland (23 per cent) and Bulgaria (27.4 per cent).

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