THE country’s national high-tech zones have shown strong risk-hedging ability and growth momentum, a Chinese official said at a press conference Friday. The annual revenue of the country’s 169 State-level high-tech zones is expected to exceed 48 trillion yuan (US$7.6 trillion) in 2021, up about 12 percent year on year, said Shao Xinyu, vice minister of science and technology. According to initial estimate, profits from these high-tech zones totaled 4.2 trillion yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of about 17 percent, Shao added. He also noted that the national high-tech zones have contributed about 13 percent of China’s GDP although they occupy only 0.1 percent of the country’s land area. To enable high-tech zones to play a more effective role in fostering new and high-tech industries and promoting high-quality development, China will continue to support these zones in expanding and strengthening leading industries with distinctive features, and foster a number of world-class innovative industrial clusters, Shao said. The country will also support the zones in building diversified application scenarios, fostering emerging and future industries, and promoting artificial intelligent, green and low-carbon industrial development. Shao added that China will further deepen reform and foster an enabling environment for innovation and entrepreneurship. (Xinhua) | 