By Newsgd.com
With sci-tech innovation as its high-quality development, Guangdong has ranked 1st in China for 5 years in a row in terms of regional innovation capacity, according to a press conference on the province’s scientific and technological innovation achievements.
The conference said, from 2017 to 2021, the province’s expenditure on research and experimental development (R&D) increased from 234.4 billion RMB to over 380 billion RMB, with the ratio of R&D expenditure to GDP rising from 2.61% to 3.14%. At present, Guangdong is home to 1.1 million R&D personnel.
In the past years, Guangdong has also seen a surge in the number of patentedinventions. The annual patent grants for invention has grown from 38.6 thousand in 2016 to 102.8 thousand in 2021, an increase of 166%. By the end of 2021, the province’s valid invention patents reached 440 thousand, topping the list in China. As an individual economy, Guangdong’s PCT international applications stood at 26.1 thousand in 2021, ranking 4th globally.
Guangdong has also attached great importance to talent. By now,there are more than 40 thousand expats holding valid work permits in Guangdong, including more than 10 thousand high-end talents in category A.
Additionally, Guangdong accelerates the integration into the global network of sci-tech innovation and strengthens sci-tech innovation exchanges and cooperation. Leading by Hengqin, Qianhai, Hetao and other cooperation zones, Guangdong has gathered international innovative resources and established scientific and technological exchanges with many developed countries and “Belt and Road”countries. Nowadays Guangdong has built 34 national and 71 provincial international sci- tech cooperation bases. According to the conference, Guangdong will comprehensively strengthen the coordination of sci-tech innovation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau and will build 20 joint laboratories within Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. The region also established 134 business incubators for Hong Kong and Macau.
More and more Guangdong enterprises are giving priority to innovation. In 2021, the total number of high-tech enterprises in Guangdong exceeded 60 thousand, nearly doubling that of 2017. And the total business income of high-tech enterprises in 2021 exceeded 10 trillion RMB and the total export volume was about 2 trillion RMB.
In terms of the basic research investment, the total increased from 10.94 billion RMB in 2017 to 20.41 billion RMB in 2020. 10 provincial laboratories have been built in Guangdong. Up to now, Guangdong has 30 state key labs, 430 provincial key labs covering 21 municipal cities.
Gong Guoping, director general of Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province, indicated Guangdong will strive for a high level of sci-tech self-reliance and self-strengthening and build a ‘whole-process innovation ecology’ that involves basic research, technological breakthrough, research outcome transformation, finance and talent pool development, aimingto establish a technological and industrial innovation highland with global influence.
