As the growth mode based on land, labor force and capital is facing more and more constraints, it is becoming increasingly crucial to foster new drivers related to technological progress.
In December 2017, the Central Economic Work Conference stressed that more efforts should be made to foster new drivers, promote science and technology innovation, and upgrade traditional industries.
This year, the Central Committee of CPC and the State Council have also released a series of documents in science research management, Internet Plus government services, and intellectual property trials, in an effort to break institutional barriers to entrepreneurship and innovation.
In the first 11 months, the added value of high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing increased by 11.8 percent and 8.3 percent year-on-year, 5.5 and 2 percentage points higher than industries above designated scale.
The output of new products such as new energy vehicles, optical fibers and smart TV maintains rapid growth. And in the first 10 months, operation revenue of enterprises in strategic emerging service, technology service and high-tech service industry increased by 15.3 percent, 15.3 percent and 13.8 percent year-on-year, respectively.
In addition, new business formats in new drivers are springing up. With growing integration of the internet and different economic and social sectors, new emerging consumption such as online retailing continues to develop rapidly.
In the first 11 months of this year, online retail sales in China reached 8.07 trillion yuan (about $1.2 trillion), up 24.1 percent year-on-year.
Meanwhile, entrepreneurship and innovation is thriving, and new market entities are growing in both quality and quantity. In the first three quarters, the average number of new market entities established per day in China was 57,200, and 4 million new enterprises in the service industry, up 13.2 percent from the same period last year.
The continuing and rapid increase in new market entities has stimulated market vitality and creativity, and promoted employment and healthy economic development.
In 2017, China’s innovation index is 196.3, up 6.8 percent from the previous year. On the whole, the innovation environment continues to improve.
To promote mass entrepreneurship and innovation, China will continue to streamline administration with enhanced supervision, and optimize government services.
Currently, China’s economy has entered the high-quality development phase. During the new stage, China will strive to foster strategic emerging industries, accelerate efforts to build a national innovation system, and upgrade mass entrepreneurship and innovation.
The rapid growth of new drivers is an important force to keep the economy in a reasonable range and support optimization of the economic structure, said Mao Yongsheng, spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics.
