Innovation is essential for petchem sector of GCC: GPCA

Mr. Al-Mady said that although the Governments of countries in GCC, comprising of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman, have made efforts to enhance competitiveness in the respective regions, the next step is to establish regional think tanks to identify and pursue new areas of competitive advantages in the sector, reports Saudi Gazette.

At the summit, the GPCA official highlighted the importance of innovation stating that establishing think tanks would help better target rich research budgets, generate and acquire right innovation faster, and exploit it via monetization of intellectual property and more effective marketing.

Although the region's petrochemical industry has already made significant progress in innovation, regional spending on research and development in the sector lags behind Japan, China, the US and the European Union (EU), with the GCC spending only 0.8 percent of the US$ 49 billion global investment in this area, he added.

Held for the first time, the GPCA Research and Innovation Summit was organized by GPCA to provide a regional platform to highlight and advocate the crucial need for the GCC’s petrochemical industry to focus on the innovations and technologies development that are critical for the sector’s growth.

At the event, several stakeholders from the GCC petrochemicals sector, experts of the petrochemical industry and Government representatives, discuss strategies to transform ideas from the research laboratories on to the field.

In 2012, the value of the petrochemicals output by the six-member GCC is estimated at US$ 97.3 billion, representing 2.5 percent of the world’s total, according to GPCA statistics. In 2011, the value of petrochemicals output by GCC reached US$ 94.1 billion.

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