BRUSSELS, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- Province Brabant Wallon in Belgium is the EU region with the highest research and development (R&D) intensity in 2012, Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (EU) said on Friday.
Eurostat published its regional yearbook Friday to provide a statistical portrait of the EU across the regional spectrum.
The publication contains statistics and indicators for more than 300 regions of 28 EU member states as well as some regions in candidate countries.
According to the year book, Province Brabant Wallon spent 7.8 percent of its regional GDP on R&D in 2012, highest ratio among EU regions.
Braunschweig and Stuttgart both in Germany ranked the second and the third.
Among the 13 EU regions with a share of R&D expenditure above 4 percent of GDP, six were located in Germany, two in the United Kingdom and one each in Belgium, Denmark, France, Austria and Sweden.
Overall in the 28-member-state EU, 35 regions had R&D intensity above 3 percent of GDP.
On the opposite end of the scale, Ciudad Autonoma de Ceuta in Spain, Sud-Est in Romania, Ionia Nisia in Greece and Severen Tsentralen in Bulgariawere are the EU regions recording the lowest R&D intensity.
Among the 10 EU regions with a share of R&D expenditure below 0.2 percent of GDP, three were located in Bulgaria, two each in Greece, Spain and Romania and one in Poland.
