State companies are under numerous restrictions that do not allow them to work with innovations, said board chairman of Latvijas Mobilais telefons LLC Juris Binde at the conference titled “Innovation transfer: from idea to economic transformation” held at Riga Castle on Thursday, the 20th of April.
He mentioned that among the restrictions is both the form of business, the way officials think and the bureaucratic burden. The head of the company also mentioned that
adoption of innovations also requires courage, risks and possible “acceptable losses”,
where the latter is simply not possible for state companies most of the time. He also added that there are numerous sectors in which regulations intend for good things, but problems appear because of the state failing to plan in a long-term perspective.
“In truth, if we look at each obstacle, none of them are that large. Each one is a grain of sand. But if we look at all of these systemic problems together, it turns out this bed of sand is enormous and deep, which means the system will start running in place at some point,” said Binde.
“If in most cases state institution and state companies are dominated by a very official way of thinking, then it is necessary to change the way they think to a more business form,” said Binde. According to him, the state and its owned companies should focus on improving the economy, their competitiveness, productivity and efficiency, which will help create new products and secure better positions on the international market.
As one solution Binde mentioned cooperation between businesses and scientists, where businesses create an environment to help adopt the innovations suggested by scientists.
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