Innovation & Technology in Exporting and Non-Exporting firms from the Light Engineering Sector in Lahore, Sialkot, Gujrat and Gujranwala-2020

The Innovation and Technology Centre (ITC) of the Lahore School of Economics conducted a survey in 2019/2020 to observe the growing trends in innovation and technology upgradation in the exporting and non- exporting firms from the light engineering sector across 4 different cities in Punjab including Lahore, Gujrat, Gujranwala and Sialkot. The data consisted of 138 firms, 30 exporting and 108 non-exporting firms, collected during the period of October 2019 to May 2020. In the surveyed exporting firms, half of the firms were selling 50% to 100% of their output abroad, with majority of them exporting to Asia followed by Europe.

Looking at the results of innovation, most of surveyed exporting firms revealed that their revenues increased, cost of production did not decrease much quality of products improved, and need for retraining their employees increased as the result of innovation. Whereas, in case non-exporting firms, a majority of firms reported that their revenues increased, cost of production did not reduce much, quality of output improved as the result of innovation. Moreover, both exporting and non-exporting firms did not have to reduce their prices as the result of innovation.

The two greatest barriers faced by both exporting and non-exporting while trying to perform innovation were lack of financing and lack of innovation opportunities. Thus, it can be concluded that more incentives for innovations could be given by providing more sources of funding for the innovating firms in the form of aid from the government and with the assistance of financial institutions.

Link to the Report: https://itc.lahoreschool.edu.pk/downloads/Innovation%20Report-2%202020%20V1.pdf