BEIJING, Dec. 12 -- China's total number of national high-tech industrial development zones had reached 178 as of the end of November, an official said Tuesday.

In the first three quarters of this year, the economic output of these high-tech zones hit 12.33 trillion yuan (1.73 trillion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 7.11 percent, said Wu Jiaxi, deputy director of the planning department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

"Relying on the national high-tech zones, a number of high-tech industrial clusters have been cultivated and grown, becoming an important force in promoting the development of new industrialization and ensuring the security of industrial and supply chains," Wu said at a press conference in Beijing.

Data released at the conference showed that in recent years, national high-tech zones have played a leading role in high-quality development and become an important engine of economic development.

These zones have gathered nearly 80 percent of key national laboratories and 70 percent of national manufacturing innovation centers. Meanwhile, a number of leading original achievements, such as intelligent robots and satellite navigation, are accelerating industrialization in high-tech zones, data showed.

Wu said that the ministry will encourage qualified high-tech zones to build a number of bases for the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements, so as to transfer more sci-tech achievements from laboratories to production lines.