R&D Photo:Xinhua

A total of 17 top Chinese economists suggested that China's three municipal cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, three leading provinces of East China's Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces and South China's Guangdong Province have stepped into a development phase driven by innovation, Chinese news outlet yicai.com reported on Saturday. 

The remark was made at an economic forum after the awarding ceremony of the 9th Zhang Peigang Outstanding Achievement Award in Development Economics and the 5th Zhang Peigang Award for Young Scholars in Development Economics held on Friday. 

The 2021 sci-tech funds report published on August 31 by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the R&D investment of the six cities and provinces reached 1.46 trillion yuan ($205.17 billion) during that year.

The R&D investment per GDP of the six cities and provinces outclassed the 2.74 average rate of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the rates of Beijing and Shanghai reached 6.53 and 4.21, respectively. 

Zhang Yansheng, chief researcher of China Center of International Economic Exchanges stated on the forum that these six cities and provinces should take the major responsibility of the country's basic scientific research, given their advantage in innovation.

In addition, there are 13 provinces and autonomous regions still in the development phase driven by resources. Their R&D investment rates are below 1.56 percent and the annual R&D investment of the provinces and autonomous regions is less than half of the investment of Guangdong Province.

Zhang suggested that innovation, sustainability and common prosperity will be the three key words in China's economic development in the next decade, with innovation taking the lead.

Global Times