R&D Is The Key
Moving Forward
As we enter 2012 economic forecasters are painting a gloomy picture for the year ahead. Moving forward much of the economic climate will de- pend on how the situation in Europe unfolds.
London’s Centre for Economics Research (CEBR) says to get ready for a Eu-rope-wide recession. It says depending on how the euro is managed European
GDP will decline between 0.6 percent and two percent.
Also as the troubled euro recently marked its 10th anniversary the center
said there was a 99 percent chance that the currency would not survive the
next 10 years. It looks as though 2012 will be the year when the euro starts
to break up.
The CEBR also foresees cracks starting to appear in the Asian economic and
political success story, with growth slowing down to just over seven percent in
China and to six percent in India. The organization says the Asian economic and
political systems are like a bicycle that has to move at a certain speed to remain
stable and even modest slowdowns are likely to lead to popular discontent.
Conversely the think tank predicted more recovery in the United States. It
says growth will hover around two percent, which isn’t much to write home
about, but positive news nonetheless. Two factors will drive US growth: the
strength of profitability and the application of technology, which will start to
make a serious difference over the course of the year.
In a technology driven field the key to moving forward in a positive direction
in the paint and coatings and related industries is to continue to invest in technology regardless of how bleak the economic forecasts are.
Battelle-R&D Magazine’s annual global R&D funding forecast offers some
optimism. It says R&D in the broadly defined chemicals and materials industry
is expected to grow by 11. 4 percent in the United States to $9.3 billion in 2012,
while growing by 3. 8 percent globally to $33.8 billion.
Nanotechnology and its applications continue to pervade all industrial applications with biomedical applications beginning during the past two years.
More than 15 U.S. government agencies propose funding $2.13 billion in nanotechnology research including DOE at $611 million, the National Institutes of
Health at $465 million, the National Science Foundation at $456 million and
the Department of Defense at $368 million.
An emerging priority in advanced materials is a heightened focus on developing alternative sources or processes related to rare earth metals because of
China’s recent export limits on supplies. In the industrial sector around the
world, closed non-Chinese rare earth mines are being reopened; however, the environmental requirements for operating these mines have increased since they
closed, making additional R&D and capital expenditures necessary to develop
new and improved processing programs.
TWRIGHT@RODPUB.COM
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