Vice-minister of finance Wang Dongwei confirmed that the central government has earmarked 370.8bn yuan ($51.3bn) toward sci-tech innovation expenditure in this year’s budget, marking a 10 percent year-on-year increase
Speaking in Beijing, Wang confirmed that China intends to promote industrial upgrades and foster innovation growth momentum through a series of bolstered fiscal and taxation policies.
“Focusing on ‘strengthening foundation and targeting key areas’, we will further support the enhancement of capabilities in scientific and technological innovation,” Wang said.
The ministry is “strongly committed” to scientific and technological innovation
The ministry will continue to scale up investment in all spheres of applied research, whilst simultaneously refining the investment machnism for basic research to better balance competitive funding with stable state support.
National science and technology projects will benefit from an integrated and clustered development strategy, with future industries seeing faster cultivation and growth processes.
Two pilot programs have been initiated to promote the deep integration of real and digital economies
Currently, 66 cities have participated in the pilot program for the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, which started in 2023. The three year pilot will eventually cover 90 cities in three phases.
The second pilot programme will see 18 billion yuan allocated across 60 cities in three batches to support new technological transformations in the manufacturing sector.
“Bottleneck” issues in the industry and supply chains will be tackled via various policy tools, Wang said at the news conference.
This will include development of industry chains in key sectors such as integrated circuits, industrial mother machines, industrial and basic software, as well as enabling independently controlled industry and supply chains.
In addition, the ministry will work to promote high-quality development of the services sector and reinforce construction of modern infrastructure.
Yao Yang, director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University, said he expects the Chinese government to roll out more fiscal and monetary policy measures step by step in the second half of the year to boost economic growth momentum.
