The total number of national high-tech industrial development zones in the country has reached 179.

Yao Jun, director of the Planning Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated on the 10th that in February of this year, the State Council approved the upgrade of Hebei Xiong'an High-tech Industrial Development Zone to a national high-tech industrial development zone, bringing the total number of national high-tech zones to 179. Yao Jun said at the press conference held by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on the same day, "Since the 14th Five-Year Plan period, various parties have insisted on 'developing high technology and achieving industrialization', promoting the foundation for the development of national high-tech zones to be more solid and robust." Last year, the national high-tech zones achieved a total industrial output value of 20.4 trillion yuan, accounting for 14.5% of the national GDP, an increase of 1.2 percentage points from the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period; internal R&D expenditure of park enterprises was approximately 1.2 trillion yuan, an increase of about 30% from the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period, and the R&D intensity reached 6.1%. Talent is the key support for the high-quality development of national high-tech zones. Lv Xianzhi, director of the Torch High-tech Industry Development Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at the meeting that national high-tech zones have become an important gathering place for China's innovation and entrepreneurship talents. Currently, the number of employees in the industrial parks exceeds 26 million, with about 40% having a bachelor's degree or above. The full-time equivalent of R&D personnel per 10,000 employees is about 12 times the national average. In addition, the national high-tech zones continue to deepen cooperation with "Belt and Road" science and technology parks in terms of technology innovation, achievement transformation, and industrial cooperation, gradually forming a multi-level and wide-ranging cooperation pattern. Among them, national high-tech zones have established strategic cooperation relationships with parks in more than 30 countries and regions; set up 5 Sino-foreign small and medium-sized enterprise cooperation zones, steadily promoting international cooperation in industrial chain supply chains in the fields of artificial intelligence, new energy, new materials, and biomedicine.