QINGDAO will promote technology innovation and upgrading among companies this year. The city will develop relationships with more than 90 percent of big companies and help more than 50 percent of them establish technological development organization. More than 30 percent of the companies will apply for the city’s key technology innovation projects and at least 20 city-level company technology centers will be approved this year. Preferential policies will be given to help companies improve their technological innovation. Three batches of company’s technological innovation projects will be approved this year and the total number of the projects is expected to reach more than 1,000 with research funds of more than 2 billion yuan. A multi-level key project database will be built. Projects with more than 5 million yuan will be included into the database and the Municipal Commission of Economy and Information will give special attention to those with investments of more than 10 million yuan. In 2011, investments in technology upgrading reached 81.19 billion yuan, accounting for 57.8 percent of the city’s total industrial investment. There had been 21 national company technology centers and 252 city-level company technology centers as of the end of 2011. Among these, 32 city-level centers were approved in 2011 and half of the centers were in new industries. A total of 1,461 technology innovation projects were set up by companies in 2011. Among these, about 190 companies have already paid 1.82 billion yuan on research funds, increasing by 36.6 percent over 2009. (Wang Yuanyuan, Lin Gang)  | 