The high value added products of the chemical industry continuously open up new fields of application and pave the way to progress and innovation in other industries. Typical examples are the aerospace industry, the car industry, telecommunications, electrical engineering and electronics. Wide variations in R&D efforts are observed across the chemical industry. R&D is most important in pharmaceuticals and in life sciences.
Analysing the ratio of R&D spending to sales of the chemical industry it can be observed that the USA had a slightly higher ratio than the EU, but has decreased to similar levels in recent years whereas Japan has a ratio around twice as high as the other two trading regions. Japan is also the only country to barely show a decline in the ratio between 1995 and 2003.