As its economy recovers steadily from the pandemic, China provides an ever-improving environment for innovation with increased input and growing output.

According to Global Innovation Index (GII) 2021 released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), China (12th) is still the only middle-income economy to make it into the top 30. “Since 2013, China has moved up the GII ranks consistently and steadily, establishing itself as a global innovation leader and getting closer to the top 10 every year.”

In 2021, China's expenditure on R&D reached RMB 2.78 trillion (or EUR 398.18 billion), up by 14.2% over the previous year and the ratio of R&D expenditure to GDP reached a new high of 2.44%, close to the average level of 2.47% in OECD countries before the pandemic. According to GII 2021, China hosts the second largest number of science and technology (S&T) clusters in the world and Chinese clusters experienced the largest increases in S&T output.