The Volkswagen Group (Vw) is the largest investor in the world for research and development in the private sector. This is one of the results of the annual "Scoreboard on industrial investment in R&D", elaborated by the European Commission and based on a sample of 2 international companies belonging to different industrial sectors. With investments in Research and Development equal to 9,5 billion euros in 2012 (7,2 billion in 2011), VW leads the rankings of the study for the first time and it is a bit of a surprise the only German company in the top ten.
Just today the German automaker announced that 84 billion euros will be invested in the next 5 years, of which almost 63,5 billion will go to plants and almost 60% of the amount will be invested in Germany. Bernd Osterloh, leader of the works council, said the investment announcement was good news for Volkswagen's plants and jobs. “It's a positive sign considering the market's difficulties,” Osterloh said. VW intends to become world leader by 2018 overtaking General Motors and Toyota. For this year, the group aims to match last year's record operating profit of nearly 11,3 billion.
