CMG: 

Guangdong is well-known as a national innovation hub and also a province that is home to a large number of market entities. How does Guangdong guide and give full play to the main role of enterprises in innovation? And how is it accelerating the aggregation of innovative elements and the transformation of innovation results?

Ai Xuefeng:

Thank you for your questions. Since the implementation of the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area five years ago, Guangdong has achieved significant results in driving development through innovation. In this process, enterprises have played the main role, which is clearly reflected in the four figures of "90%" coming from enterprises, namely approximately 90% of R&D institutions, 90% of R&D personnel, 90% of R&D investment, and 90% of patent applications and approvals. Guangdong will continue to empower enterprises to play a leading role in innovation under the new circumstances, promoting leading technology enterprises to transform into ecological-oriented and platform-leading enterprises, cultivating a group of innovative "chain-leader" enterprises, strengthening specialized, refined, distinctive and new "little giant" enterprises, and accelerating the incubation of a batch of "new species" enterprises in new fields and new tracks to form a good model of close cooperation between upstream and downstream, and integration of innovation among small, medium and large enterprises.

Therefore, we will involve more enterprises in government decision-making on innovation. We will improve the mechanism of demand-oriented science and technology projects, and improve the normal communication mechanism with science and technology enterprises. We will urge enterprises to act as the "originators," "responders" and "evaluators" of technological innovation, and ensure that "those who can hear the sound of gunfire direct the operations on the ground."

We will allocate more innovation resources toward enterprises. We will promote greater openness and the sharing of major scientific and technological infrastructure with enterprises, as well as facilitating the flow of high-level research personnel into enterprises. We will vigorously develop the technology service industry, particularly by establishing a financing system that covers the entire lifecycle of funding needs for technology enterprises.

We will have enterprises take the leading role in tackling core technological challenges. We will increase the proportion of enterprise-led projects in provincial key R&D plans and major special projects to over 80%, give enterprises the right to formulate their own technical directions, and support enterprises as "contractors" to organize and carry out technical research.

We will empower enterprises to accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. Focusing on the needs of enterprises in the fields of integrated circuits, new displays, new energy storage, new materials, biomedicine and other fields, we will accelerate the construction of pilot platforms aimed at promoting the engineering and industrialization of cutting-edge technologies to facilitate the implementation and transformation of more scientific and technological achievements in Guangdong.

We will encourage innovative enterprises in the reform of science and technology systems and mechanisms. We will implement the policy of super deduction of R&D expenses, promote the demonstration application of scientific and technological achievements of a number of enterprises, accelerate the opening of application scenarios to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) focused on technology, and create an ecosystem conducive to enterprise innovation. Thank you.