Shandong has made great achievements in innovation-driven development since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), local media reported.

An employee works on the production line of a marine equipment manufacturing company in Dongying, Shandong province. [Photo by Liu Zhifeng/For China Daily]

In the past 10 years, a total of 247 projects in Shandong have won national science and technology awards, and the number of high-tech enterprises has increased by 7.9 times.

Shandong leads the country in both industrialization and scientific and technological innovation across 20 different fields, including intelligent transportation, fine chemicals, and fuel cells, according to Tang Bo, director of the Shandong Provincial Department of Science and Technology.

Shandong has cultivated 200 leading enterprises in scientific and technological innovation, and 18 of them have been listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.

The number of high-tech enterprises in Shandong jumped from 2,569 in 2012 to 20,412 in 2021, an increase of 7.9 times in 10 years. The output value share of high-tech enterprises in industrial output above designated size increased from 29.1 percent in 2012 to 46.8 percent in 2021, contributing greatly to regional economic growth.

Shandong has 1,881 provincial-level enterprise technology centers and 196 national-level ones, ranking first for total number of centers in China.

In 2021, the 196 national-level enterprise technology centers in Shandong invested a total of 86 billion yuan ($12.75 billion) in research and development, applied for 29,000 new invention patents, and generated nearly 1 trillion yuan in sales revenue from new products.