Beijing is a city that upholds science, and it is also a city that has fostered many scientific and technological innovations. High-tech industries have become a new sector for the city's economic growth.

During the Tenth Five-Year Plan, Beijing carried out a series of projects featuring important innovations. Centred on the Zhongguancun Science Park, the city built up a new system for scientific innovations in the capital region, integrating the city's scientific resources and making it a leader in sharpening the city's competitive edge.

With the great efforts made during the Tenth Five-Year Plan, Beijing has established a multilayered, multidimensional legal framework for science-related policies and regulations. The service system for business set-ups was strongly improved. A group of innovative enterprises with big effects emerged.

A large number of fast-developing intermediary service agencies played an important role in boosting enterprises?innovation and speeding the conversion of scientific achievements.

A new pattern was formed involving universities and enterprises vying in competitions and cooperative projects, with various innovative agencies developing on their own. Scientific innovation and the development of the capital city became more intermingled. Beijing's expenditures on research and development (R&D) increased by 30 percent annually, accounting for 5 percent of the regional total output value. Service industries, represented by information transmission, computer services, software, scientific research and technological services, created huge added values. In 2004, they realized added values of 78.3 billion yuan (US$9.79 billion), accounting for 12.9 percent of the city's GDP, thus becoming a new sector for Beijing's economic growth.

In 2005, Beijing's R&D expenditures were 38 billion yuan (US$4.75 billion), an increase of 20 percent over 2004. During the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the accumulated R&D expenditures rose to 134.39 billion yuan (US$16.8 billion), 2.1 times more than in the Ninth Five-Year Plan. Beijing had 7,400 institutions that conducted scientific research, with 340,000 people engaged in scientific activities, increasing 1.2 times and by 30.3 percent over the figures for 2000.

About 84,000 and 40,000 patent applications and approvals were reported, increasing by 1.2 times and 77.8 percent more than under the Ninth Five-Year Plan. Beijing signed 38,000 technological contracts, with a total contracted trade volume of 48.96 billion yuan (US$6.12 billion). During the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the number of signed technological contracts was 156,000 and trade volume reached 159.22 billion yuan (US$19.9 billion), increasing by 71 percent, 2.8 times more than during the Ninth Five-Year Plan.