(Yicai Global) Jan. 11 -- Shanghai’s spending on research and development is expected to have risen 0.1 percentage point to 4.2 percent of the city’s gross domestic product last year, with investment in science and technology continuing to climb, according to a new report.

Corporate R&D accounted for more than 65 percent of the total, the Shanghai Science and Technology Progress Report 2022 showed yesterday.

Investment in science and technology likely reached CNY46.1 billion (USD6.8 billion), covering 929 national projects, according to the report, with the central government contributing CNY33.3 billion of that.

Shanghai’s global influence as an international center of science and technology innovation keeps rising, as the Chinese megacity has become one of the world’s major innovative cities, the report said.

In terms of basic research, Shanghai is oriented toward the integrated circuit and high-end medical equipment fields, boasting many key projects in brain science, brain-like intelligence, and quantum science and technology. The city has also set up a regional innovation fund with the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Shanghai’s hard work in research and development of integrated circuits, biomedicines, and artificial intelligence has begun to bear fruit. Four new innovative drugs were approved for marketing in 2022, 178 won permission to proceed to clinical trials, and conditional marketing approval for the Covid-19 drug VV116, which was in phase three trials, was applied for.

Shanghai also developed several core technologies in the materials, equipment, and advanced processing fields, and built a platform for R&D testing and industrialization. Last month, the first C919 aircraft was delivered to its first client, Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines. Its maker had received 1,035 orders from 32 customers as of the end of last year.

Editor: Futura Costaglione