International technological exchange is a set of economic relations between foreign counterparties regarding the use of the results of scientific and technical activities that have scientific and practical value.
The concept of international technological exchange in a broad sense means the penetration of any scientific and technical knowledge and the exchange of production experience between countries, and in a narrow sense – the transfer of scientific and technical knowledge and experience related to the reproduction of specific technological processes.
In the international economy, technology is usually considered as a developed factor of production, characterized by high international mobility, and the concept of “technology” itself is interpreted as a set of scientific and technical knowledge that can be used in the production of goods and services. International UN documents interpret the concept of “technology” as:
a set of design solutions, methods and processes for the production of goods and the provision of services; materialized or embodied scientific and technical knowledge, for example, equipment, machinery, etc.
Two levels of prerequisites for the development of international technology exchange can be distinguished:
1) at the country level , this is the uneven development of the countries of the world economy in the scientific and technical sphere, which, first of all, is due to the insufficient amount of expenditure on R&D in most countries and the different goals of their application. In industrialized countries, the acquisition of technology contributes to the modernization of the production apparatus in various industries. For developing countries, it is a means of overcoming technological backwardness and creating their own industries focused on domestic needs;
2) at the level of organizations (firms), the acquisition of technology contributes to: the solution of specific economic, scientific and technical problems; overcoming the narrowness of the scientific and technical base of a particular enterprise, the lack of production capacity and other resources; obtaining new strategic opportunities in development.