File photo: VCG

BEIJING, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- China's technology market has seen more than 484,000 technology contracts in 2019, with the total volume of transactions at 2.24 trillion yuan (about 318.6 billion U.S. dollars), new data showed.

These figures represented year-on-year increases of 17.5 and 26.6 percent, respectively, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology.

It marked a record-high transaction value for China's technology market, exceeding 2 trillion yuan for the first time.

Among all types of technology contracts, those related to technical services achieved a transaction volume of 1.24 trillion yuan, a 28.9-percent year-on-year increase.

Contracts related to technological development, technology transfer, and technology consulting all saw a significant increase in the volume of transactions.

Among all technologies, new energy and high-efficiency technologies achieved the largest increase of 82.7 percent in contract value.

Enterprises dominate Chinese technology trading. In 2019, enterprises contributed more than 321,000 technology contracts in China with a transaction volume of more than 2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.3 percent and representing 91.5 percent of all technology trading transaction value nationwide.

Following enterprises, colleges and universities, as well as scientific research institutions are also major players in the country's booming market for technology trading.

Tech contracts related to intellectual property contributed 41.5 percent of the country's total technology transactions. The total transaction value for this type of contracts exceeded 928.7 billion yuan in 2019.

China highly values science and technology through various incentive measures in policies and investments.

The country's expenditure on research and development (R&D) has seen double-digit growth for three consecutive years. China's spending on R&D hit a record high at 2.19 percent of its GDP in 2018, up 0.04 percentage points compared with 2017.

Meanwhile, China has been improving the incentive mechanism and policy environment, issuing a series of reform documents concerning the promotion of sci-tech development, transformation of sci-tech achievements as well as the national science award system.