An aerial drone photo of Xiongan New Area in north China's Hebei Province, May 2, 2024. (Photo:VCG)

China now has 179 national high-tech industrial development zones, after the State Council approved in February the upgrading of the Xiong'an high-tech zone in Hebei Province to a national high-tech industrial development zone, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Friday.

In 2025, national high-tech industrial development zones generated a combined output of 20.4 trillion yuan (about 2.97 trillion U.S. dollars), accounting for 14.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product, said Yao Jun, an official with the ministry, at a press conference.

Enterprises in these zones spent about 1.2 trillion yuan on in-house research and development in 2025, up roughly 30 percent from the end of 2020, with R&D intensity reaching 6.1 percent, Yao said.

The national high-tech industrial development zones have become an important hub for innovation and entrepreneurial talent in China, according to the ministry.

More than 26 million people are employed in these zones, about 40 percent of whom hold bachelor's degrees or above. The full-time equivalent of R&D personnel per 10,000 employees in the zones is about 12 times the national average, said the ministry.

These zones have established strategic cooperative ties with parks in more than 30 countries and regions, and set up five cooperation zones for Chinese and foreign small and medium-sized enterprises, while steadily advancing international cooperation on industrial and supply chains in fields such as artificial intelligence, new energy and new materials, and biomedicine.