He told him that China’s research and development spending will increase by more than 7% annually between 2021 and 2025. R&D will account for a higher percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) than in the previous 5 years. He gave no details on how much the government would spend in absolute terms.
China’s R&D spending rose 10.3% to 2.44 trillion Chinese yuan ($ 378 billion) and accounted for 2.4% of GDP in 2020, according to official statistics.
Meanwhile, central government spending on basic research will increase by 10.6%, Li said.
This year’s two sessions mark the start of China’s 14th fortnightly development plan, which sets out the priorities and goals for the coming years. The current plan runs from 2021 to 2025.
In the past, the annual meeting of delegates has overseen major changes, including the abolition of President Xi Jinping’s term limits in 2018.
In his report, Li set out China’s vision for the next five years.
“To improve China’s innovation system, we will work faster to improve our strategic scientific and technological capacity based on the development of national laboratories, we will strive to make great advances in basic technologies in key fields, and we will formulate and implement a ten-year action plan for basic research, ”he said.
According to a draft of its five-year plan, China will focus on the development of various technology areas, including semiconductors, healthcare, quantum computing and cloud computing.