China's demographic dividend has not disappeared but the talent dividend is taking shape, according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the innovation-driven development strategy has fostered high-quality talent and will continue to boost economic growth.

United Nations data noted on Wednesday that India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country by mid-2023, when India will have a population of 1.4286 billion, while China will have 1.4257 billion.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded that it is the quality rather than quantity that is more important. Over 10 years into China's innovation-driven development strategy, China has become home to the world's largest cohort of research and development (R&D) personnel.

From 2012 to 2022, China saw its ranking in the Global Innovation Index jump from 34th to 11th, with the economy expanding at an average annual rate of 6.6 percent between 2013 and 2021, contributing over 30 percent to world economic growth.

The country has expanded its R&D expenditure from 1.03 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in 2012 to 3.09 trillion yuan in 2022, the second highest in the world. Meanwhile, its total number of R&D personnel has increased from 3.25 million to over 6 million.

Over the past decade, the number high-tech companies in China has risen from 49,000 to 400,000, and the number of national high-tech zones with annual revenue above 100 billion yuan has grown from 54 to 97.

China has been focused on higher-quality growth with industrial upgrading policies and economic blueprints targeting technological innovation, and these sectors are creating more value for the broader economy.

The country has made breakthroughs in some core technologies, including lunar and Martian exploration, deep sea and deep earth probes, supercomputers, satellite navigation, quantum information, nuclear power technology, new energy technology, aircraft manufacturing and biomedicine.

China launched the Shenzhou-13, 14 and 15 spacecraft in 2022, making it the third country to operate a permanent space station. Last year also witnessed the delivery of China's first domestically developed large passenger aircraft, the C919.

A series of major achievements in 2022 have demonstrated that technological innovation has become a key engine for the Chinese economy.

The extensive application of China's sci-tech accomplishments not only leads to its domestic industrial upgrading, but also lends impetus to the neighboring areas, said Gu Qingyang, a scholar at the National University of Singapore.