Bulgaria is to spend BGN 937.9 M on innovations in 2015, including public spending and the expenses of the business sector.

The sum is nearly double the amount earmarked in 2011, when the expenses for research and development amounted to BGN 429.6 M.

The doubling of investments in the sphere is included in the last version of the Innovation Strategy for Intelligent Specialization 2014-2020, which is used to determine the distribution of EU funding under the program "Innovations and Competitiveness" in the 2014-2020 programming period, according to reports of Trud daily.

In 2015, Bulgaria's public spending on innovations is to amount to a total of BGN 525.6 M, including BGN 275 M through EU funds and BGN 197 M from the state budget and BGN 53.6 M from universities.

Companies and non-commercial establishments are expected to spend around BGN 412.3 M on innovations in 2015.

In 2014, Bulgaria's research spending is to amount to BGN 823.4 M.

Despite the growing expenses in the sphere, Bulgaria is still last in the EU by innovations.

Bulgaria is lagging behind substantially in the use of digital technology.

According to the digital agenda of Europe, 33% of small and medium-sized companies are to sell their products online by 2015.

By the end of 2013, however, only 4% of these companies in Bulgaria were developing online trade, compared to an EU average of 13%.

EU plans to have at least 50% of the population buying online in 2015.

By end-2013, however, only 6% of Bulgarians made purchases online.