Recently, CASTED and Guangzhou Productivity Promotion Center (Guangzhou Institute of Innovation Strategy) jointly released the Guangzhou City Innovation Index Report 2018. Zhang Li, Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Committee of CASTED, Deputy Director Xuan Zhaohui and Associate Research Fellow Sun Yunjie of the Institute of S&T Statistics and Analysis, and Fan Xiaohong, Director of the Guangzhou Productivity Promotion Center, attended the press conference and answered questions from reporters.

The Guangzhou City Innovation Index Report 2018 lays the framework of the innovation index and indicator systems at the city and district levels from four aspects: innovation resources, enterprise innovation, innovation performance and innovation environment, and monitors and evaluates the innovation capability of Guangzhou and the 11 administrative districts of the city. The research shows that science and technology innovation is developing rapidly in Guangzhou. From 2010 to 2017, the total score of Guangzhou in the innovation index increased from 100 points to 217.48 points, with an average annual increase of 11.7%. In 2017, the overall innovation performance of the districts in Guangzhou notably improved, with the rankings in order of Huangpu District, Tianhe District, Yuexiu District, Nansha District, Haizhu District, Panyu District, Huadu District, Baiyun District, Liwan District, Zengcheng District and Conghua District.

The report shows that in recent years, total R&D investment has increased rapidly in Guangzhou, with accelerated concentration of innovation resources; the status of enterprises as the main force of innovation has enhanced significantly, and scientific and technological innovation has played a more visible role in promoting the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure; the generation and transformation of scientific and technological achievements have picked up speed, the performance of scientific and technological innovation has notably improved, and the capability of scientific and technological innovation to support economic and social development has increased; the industrial layout and the ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship is more optimized. That said, there are also some weak spots in Guangzhou’s innovation development, including per capita budget for science popularization, energy consumption drop rate per 10,000 yuan of GDP, incubation system construction and major innovation platform construction.