A staff member introduces a minimally invasive orthopedic surgery robot to visitors at the 2022 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in East China's Shanghai, Sept 1, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]
The Chinese mainland has climbed to 11th place on the 2022 Global Innovation Index (GII) released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), up one place from its 2021 ranking.
This elevation in rank marks the Chinese mainland's 10th consecutive ascent, bringing it to the top of the 36 upper middle-income economies, according to the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) on Thursday.
The GII tracks the most recent global innovation trends and reveals the most innovative economies in the world, ranking the innovation performances of approximately 130 economies, according to the WIPO.
In terms of innovation input sub-indicators, the Chinese mainland ranked first in domestic market scale and number of firms offering formal training, according to this year's GII report.
In terms of innovation output sub-indicators, the Chinese mainland ranked first in patents by origin, utility models by origin, labor productivity growth, trademarks by origin and creative goods exports, according to the report.
China will step up efforts in the construction of major projects and new infrastructure as part of its overall drive to foster long-term, sustained, innovation-driven and high-quality development, the country's top economic regulator said on Monday.
Experts said the government has already introduced a series of stimulus policies for infrastructure spending to shore up growth, and its accelerated push to construct key projects will help boost domestic demand, expand effective investment and stabilize the overall economy.
They said China's economy will continue to pick up in the third and fourth quarters of the year with existing policy support and forceful infrastructure spending.
The country will support the construction of major projects, with a key focus on implementing 102 key projects mapped out during the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) and projects in the five-year plan for transportation development, said Zheng Jian, director of the Department of Infrastructure Development at the National Development and Reform Commission.
Song Wen, deputy director of the Planning Department at the National Energy Administration, said the NDRC and the NEA are accelerating the push for the implementation and construction of key projects mapped out in the 14th Five-Year Plan to expand effective investment.
She said investment in key energy fields during the 14th Five-Year Plan period is expected to grow by more than 20 percent compared with the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), providing a strong driving force to expand effective demand and promote stable economic growth.
"We expect infrastructure investment will remain strong and do the heavy lifting to support growth," said Lloyd Chan, a senior economist at the Oxford Economics think tank.
Chan said stimulus rolled out in this year's Government Work Report and the 33 measures announced in May will feed through into the second half. New measures also include channeling 300 billion yuan to specific projects, along with allocating an additional quota of 500 billion yuan in local government special bonds that will be utilized by the end of October as new infrastructure projects become available for infrastructure financing.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that fixed-asset investment increased by 5.8 percent year-on-year in the January-August period, compared with 5.7 percent between January and July. Notably, infrastructure investment jumped 8.3 percent during the first eight months of the year, higher than that in the first seven months.
Yang Haiping, a researcher at the Central University of Finance and Economics' Institute of Securities and Futures, said infrastructure investment will likely accelerate in the second half of the year.
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