Chinese provinces release plans to promote regional innovation development

People look at intelligent robots on display at the fourth World Manufacturing Convention in Hefei, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 19, 2021. (Xinhua/Han Xu)

BEIJING, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Over ten provincial-level regions in China have released plans to promote science and technology innovation during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, outlining the key emphasis of work in the next five years, reported Economic Information Daily on Monday.

East China's Zhejiang Province has specified to actively attract comprehensive national technology innovation center to set up stations in the province, and to build both comprehensive and specialized innovation centers at the provincial-level.

East China's Jiangsu Province aims to build an industrial science and technology innovation center with global influence by the year 2025; and central China's Hubei Province also proposed to transform itself into a pilot province of innovation-driven development in the region by the same year.

Acknowledging coordinated regional development as a basis of regional industry innovation, China has initially formed a number of regional innovation clusters, namely the Beijing-centered Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Shanghai-centered Yangtze River Delta region and the Guangdong-centered Pearl River Delta region, among others.

Compared with last year, the Yangtze River Delta region has witnessed significant progress in innovation resources and output, industry potential and environmental support for innovation development this year, according to a recent report. The report also pointed out that the overall innovation level of the region has increased by 12.84 percent year on year, indicating stable progress and friendly environment of the region's innovation development.

The Yangtze River Delta region is looking to build a modernized and globalized science and technology innovation community by the year 2025, with R&D investment accounting for more than three percent of total and the number of international scientific and technological research papers jointly published by the region reaching 25,000.

In a bid to promote the construction of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regional community for coordinated innovative development, north China's Hebei Province is also expected to accelerate the practical transition of scientific and technological results and cultivate 100 leading enterprises in the field with global competitiveness.

The central and western parts of China have also joined the efforts in formulating regional innovation communities. Central China's Hubei Province and Hunan Province have signed a cooperation agreement together with east China's Jiangxi Province, in order to coordinately promote high-quality development by recognizing regional industrial foundation, jointly utilizing science and technology resources of the three provinces, and accommodating common needs for development.

Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality and Chengdu of Sichuan Province have accelerated their courses in innovation cooperation in recent years as well. Earlier, the two sides have agreed to jointly build a scientific and technological innovation center with national influence in the region.