Editor's note: Despite challenges brought by COVID-19 over the past three years, China still witnessed strong momentum for development in some respects. Against this backdrop, CGTN is launching a three-episode animation series, "China UP," to showcase the nation's rise in certain areas. This is the second episode of the series, focusing on China's innovation capacity.
Over the past decade, China has witnessed rapid scientific and technological progress and gradually transformed into an innovation powerhouse. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Chinese mainland has risen to 11th place on the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2022, up one spot from its ranking in 2021, marking its 10th consecutive ascent.
As a leading reference for measuring an economy's innovation performance, the GII 2022 captured the innovation ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracked the most recent global innovation trends. According to the report, Chinese mainland remained the only middle-income economy in the top 30, maintaining its third place within the South East Asia, East Asia, and Oceania (SEAO) regions and retaining first place in the upper middle-income group.
"The close attention paid by the government and the country to innovation as an engine of growth is paying off," said WIPO Director General Daren Tang at the press launch of the GII 2022.
Chinese mainland ranked 21st in innovation inputs, higher than in 2021 and 2020. Despite comparatively low innovation inputs, Chinese mainland ranked 8th in terms of innovation outputs. With regard to innovation output sub-indicators, China's strength lies in patents by origin, utility models by origin, labor productivity growth, trademarks by origin and creative goods exports.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China has embarked on the strategy of innovation-driven development, advanced reform of the science and technology system, and strengthened basic research. Just as stated in the report to the 20th CPC National Congress: "Innovation will remain at the heart of China's modernization drive." China "will expand science and technology exchanges and cooperation with other countries, cultivate an internationalized environment for research, and create an open and globally-competitive innovation ecosystem."
As countries worldwide value more innovation, the global focus in the future will be on how to invest in innovation, as well as how to turn that investment into a stronger economic and social impact. Accordingly, China will let innovation play the key role as an engine for quality growth, and to work with the international community in order to achieve common prosperity.
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