Innovation key to propelling Anhui

measures have been taken to boost entrepreneurship, attract skilled professionals and promote cooperation.

The number of patents on average per 10,000 residents in Anhui has grown from 1.29 in 2012 to 7.7 last year.

Science and technology development will provide strong momentum for Anhui’s growth, the governor said.

Five years ago, 6.2 percent of Anhui exports were hightech products, but that surged to 24.7 percent last year.

Eighty foreign companies on the Fortune Global 500 list had launched 152 projects in Anhui by the end of last year. The province has also created a number of its own multinational enterprises.

Direct foreign investment has grown by 13 percent a year, with a five-year total of $67.3 billion by 2017.

Li said Anhui is expected to draw more overseas companies from its strategic, emerging industries, which include new types of displays, integrated circuits, speech recognition, new energy vehicles, robots, high-end equipment and biomedicine, and highend medical equipment.

“We will also lower the restrictions on attracting overseas companies to engage in the modern services sector, which includes tourism, logistics and health,” he said.

Anhui also enjoys geographic advantages for opening-up. For instance, Li said, eight cities in the province were listed in the State Council’s development plan in 2016 for the Yangtze River Delta city cluster.

The region is centered on Shanghai, while Hefei is one of the three subcenters of the city cluster. The other two are Nanjing in Jiangsu province and Hangzhou in Zhejiang province.