Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province will strive to house 8,000 high-tech enterprises by 2025, with 60 percent of companies from the city making R&D investments, according to a guideline unveiled by the city in July to bolster scientific and technological innovation during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period.

Ningbo, which is aiming to become a national innovation hub for the new materials, industrial internet, and key core components sectors, has already achieved a remarkable growth in innovative companies in recent years.

From 2016 to 2020, the city fostered an annual average of 2,000 innovative start-ups and 500 high-tech enterprises, official statistics show.

As of the end of 2020, it housed 3,102 high-tech enterprises and 1,381 provincial high-tech small and medium-sized companies.

In addition, it is now home to 66 provincial maker spaces, 32 State-level enterprise technology centers and 12 State-level business incubators. 

According to an action plan recently released by the provincial government to facilitate the construction of manufacturing innovation centers, Zhejiang plans to build two to three national manufacturing innovation centers and about 30 provincial level ones by 2025.

The innovation centers will primarily focus on 15 key sectors including industrial internet, intelligent computing, big data, integrated circuit, CNC machine tool and high-grade molding.

A fund worth 10 million yuan ($1.54 million) will be allocated to a newly designated provincial manufacturing innovation center, while the amount for a national level one will be 30 million yuan, according to the action plan.