The list of Optics Valley gazelle enterprises for 2020 was officially released on Nov 16 and 460 enterprises resident in the East Lake High-tech Development Zone were selected.

The zone -- which is also known as Optics Valley of China -- is located in Wuhan, capital city of Central China's Hubei province.

Gazelles are fast-growing companies that have annual revenues of at least $1 million and have reported four years of sustained revenue growth.

According to statistical data, the total operating revenue of the 460 gazelle enterprises in 2019 was 22.7 billion yuan ($3.47 billion), with a year-on-year growth rate of 51.8 percent.

In 2019, there were 52 gazelle enterprises with revenue of more than 100 million yuan, 38 more than that in 2017. Their total revenue of 10.36 billion yuan accounted for 45.6 percent of the total operating income of all these enterprises. Of these, there are 26 with annual revenue exceeding 100 million yuan for the first time.

In 2019, 348 Optics Valley gazelle enterprises turned profits, with combined earnings of 3.04 billion yuan and a per capita operating income of more than 600,000 yuan.

The total R&D investment of these businesses last year totaled 3.05 billion yuan and the average R&D investment by each company topped 6.6 million yuan, while the compound growth rate of R&D investment in the latest two years was 45 percent.

These businesses are engaged in key, cutting-edge industries, including optoelectronics, biomedicines, integrated circuits and semiconductor displays and the digital economy.

To date, 12 gazelles have had stock market listings, accounting for 60 percent of the listed companies in the zone in the last 10 years. Two listed in 2015 and 2016, two in 2018, while four listed last year and another four had listed in the current year as of November. In addition, in July this year resident company Welltrans listed, among the first batch selected for the national new third board equities market.

The zone generally takes four to eight years for companies to go public after entering the Optics Valley gazelle enterprises list for the first time. Of those that have listed, seven businesses were listed within five years of entering the list for the first time.