Highlights of China's innovation over past 5 years

BEIJING -- China has made significant accomplishments in implementing its innovation-driven development strategy during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), which fostered new growth drivers and support for high-quality growth.

The following facts and figures offer a glimpse of how innovation has played a crucial role in China's development over the past five years:

-- The China Innovation Index, a barometer of the country's innovation capability, rose at an accelerated pace. It gained 7.8 percent year on year in 2019 to 228.3 points, up from 181.2 in 2016, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

-- Innovation climate continued to improve, while China has been stepping up fiscal spending on science and technology. The spending jumped 12.6 percent year on year to 1.07 trillion yuan (about $159.84 billion) in 2019 from 776.07 billion yuan in 2016.

-- Investment in research and development (R&D) maintained rapid growth. China's R&D investment in 2019 totaled 2.21 trillion yuan, ranking second in the world, up 12.5 percent from a year ago and double-digit growth for the fourth consecutive year. The spending in 2016 was 1.57 trillion yuan.

-- China's spending on fundamental research, which reflects the level of original innovation investment, reached 133.56 billion yuan in 2019, up 22.5 percent over the previous year, the fastest growth in eight years. The spending expanded from 82.29 billion yuan in 2016.

-- Innovation has been yielding fruitful results. In 2019, 2.47 million patents were granted in China, a 6-percent increase over the previous year and more than six times that of 2016.

-- China's technology market bolstered fast expansion and more efficient resource allocation. Technology market transactions per 10,000 people engaging in science and technology activities reached 1.84 billion yuan last year, up from 1.15 billion yuan in 2016.