A woman works at an electronics facility in Haian, East China's Jiangsu Province on Monday where orders for LED smart drivers are piling up. The company has put more effort into research and development in recent years, aiming to build itself into a premium LED driver manufacturer. Photo: cnsphoto

China will "fully support" people who strive to be innovative and contribute to the country's development, regardless of their background, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during his visit to an optical equipment company in South China on Wednesday.

According to Xi, during the 14th Five-Year period (2021-2025), China's development calls for vigorous innovation, instead of following others' mainstream trend. Whoever that can seize the opportunity of tech innovations and have the sense of responsibility and mission, will receive "full support" from the country.

RICOM, the optical company that Xi visited, is a company based in Fuzhou in South China's Fujian Province. It specializes in the design and production of optical lenses, photoelectric systems and optical glasses.

China has been placing an increasing focus on innovation work and technology development, including raising the proportion of the budget of basic scientific research in the country's annual research and development (R&D) expenditure to about 8 percent during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

Commitments to basic scientific research have made some headway, with the total central government spending on science and technology soaring by 70 percent during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), while basic research funding doubled over the period, according to statistics from the Ministry of Science and Technology.