Beijing is going all out to build itself into the national center of scientific and technological innovation, and the city has made significant sci-tech achievement in the past five years.
In 2016, Beijing's expenditure on research and development totaled 147.98 billion yuan (US$21.73 billion), ranking the highest in China and above the average level of developed countries. Sci-tech innovation contributes more than 60 percent to Beijing's economic growth.
In 2016, Beijing produced 76.8 patents for every 10,000 residents, which was 9.6 times of the national average. The city's PCT application reached 6,589 last year, 3.5 times that of 2011. Companies in Zhongguancun, the city's innovation hub, created 229 items of international standard, an increase of 139 on the basis of 2011.
Meanwhile, the value added in the high-tech industry and technology service industry grew by 37.7 percent and 12.8 percent respectively in 2016. Last year also saw the turnover of business concerning technology contracts hit 394 billion yuan, which has doubled within five years. The gross revenue of the Zhongguancun demonstration area totaled 4.57 trillion yuan, 2.4 times of that in 2011.
Beijing is also home to 16,000 national high-tech enterprises (accounting for 16 percent of the total nationwide) and 432,000 scientific and technological enterprises. Last year, 80,000 new scientific and technological enterprises were registered in the city, accounting for 36 percent of all the newly registered enterprises. In addition, the capital city is also home to more than 350 startup incubators at the end of 2016, 125 of which have been recognized as national maker space.
