Li said that China’s research and development spending will increase by more than 7% per year 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 about how much the government will spend in absolute terms.
China’s R&D spending increased 10.3% to 2.44 trillion 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 10.6%, said Li.
This year’s Two Sessions mark the beginning of China’s 14th five-year development plan, which sets priorities and goals for the years to come. The current plan runs from 2021 to 2025.
In the past, the annual meeting of delegates oversaw major changes, including the abolition of President Xi Jinping’s term limits in 2018.
In his report, Li outlined China’s vision for the next five years.
“To improve China’s innovation system, we will work more quickly to enhance our strategic scientific and technological capacity underpinned by the development of national laboratories, we will strive to make important advances in essential technologies in key fields, and we will formulate and implement an action plan for ten years for basic research, “he said.
China will focus on developing a range of technology areas, including semiconductors, health, quantum computing and cloud computing, according to an outline of its five-year plan.