Amid efforts to advance innovation-driven development, Beijing has stepped up support for high-tech industries which will foster new growth drivers, experts said at a forum held Thursday as part of the 26th annual Beijing Science and Technology Exchange Academic Month events.

The 10 high-tech industries are mainly technology-intensive, including new-generation information technology, integrated circuits, medicine and healthcare, intelligent equipment, new energy vehicles, new materials and artificial intelligence.

The capital city has seen improved overall innovative development of these industries in recent years, based on a series of evaluation indexes regarding the proportion of its R&D institutions in the country, the R&D intensity, and the proportion of its tax and fee reductions, among others, said Jia Pinrong, a researcher at Beijing Academy of Science and Technology.

Jia emphasized that a sound industrial ecosystem is essential to support the growth of emerging technologies, new business models and startup businesses. Hence, the development of high-tech industries not only depends on technological breakthroughs, but also on the whole supporting system such as business environment, input and complementary products.

He added that the city should boost efforts to improve innovation efficiency, and advance collaboration between high-tech enterprises, universities and R&D institutions. 

As the costs of labor-intensive manufacturing have continued to rise in recent years, there is an urgent need in China to speed up industrial transformation and upgrading and advance the development of innovation-driven high-tech industries, in a bid to promote the country's foreign trade growth, Jia said.

Citing Huairou Science City and Beijing E-Town as examples, Mu Rongping, director of the Center for Innovation and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, noted that fostering such innovation hubs and engines is of great significance, so that new advantages can be created in the city's pursuit of sustainable development.

Data from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics shows that the total output of the 10 high-tech industries accounted for 30.1% of the city's GDP in 2021, 5 percentage points higher than that in 2018. 

To date, Beijing has fostered two industrial clusters with an annual output of at least 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) each — a new-generation information technology cluster and a technology services cluster — and five industrial clusters with an annual output of more than 100 billion yuan each, spanning the sectors of medicine and healthcare, intelligent equipment, artificial intelligence, energy conservation and environmental protection, and integrated circuits.

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