A night view of Shanghai. [Photo/VCG]

Shanghai is set to increase its population of high-tech enterprises to 15,000 by 2020, according to a guideline released by the municipal government on Thursday.

The guideline also states that these enterprises would achieve a combined annual revenue of more than 3 trillion yuan ($432.94billion) and profits of 280 billion yuan by 2020.

The high-tech sector, which has become an important engine in the city's development, is growing rapidly in Shanghai, said Zhang Quan, the director of Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

The city is presently home to around 9,200 high-tech enterprises, more than 80 percent of which are privately owned. In 2017, these companies applied a total of 28,539 invention patents, an 18.56 percent increase compared with the previous year, and their total revenues reached 2.3 trillion yuan, according to Zhang.

To further implement the innovation-driven strategy and accelerate the development of high-tech enterprises, the city has included in the guideline 12 measures, among which are plans to boost the innovation ability of enterprises, reduce their innovation costs and improve the business environment.