Dongguan accredited national innovative city

Dongguan has implemented the innovation-driven development strategy in depth. After three years of effort, approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, Dongguan is now successfully recognized as the national innovative city. Furthermore, adhering to "scientific and technological innovation + advanced manufacturing", in 2021, its comprehensive competitiveness in technological innovation move forward to the top 20 in the country, ranking third among prefecture-level cities in the country.

The national innovative city is a city whose development is mainly driven by creative elements such as technology, knowledge, human resources, and culture, leading to innovation for other regions. Previously, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have successfully became a national innovative city in Guangdong Province. To implement the deployment of the "National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy Outline", the Ministry of Science and Technology and relevant departments issued a letter in 2018 to support 17 cities across the country, including Foshan and Dongguan to build themselves up to become a national innovative city.

In June 2017, Dongguan made an application for building a national innovative city.

In April 2018, the application was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission.

On December 31, 2021, the Ministry of Science and Technology unveiled the evaluation results and believed that Dongguan had completed the construction tasks overall and obtained the positive result; the city has successfully passed the assessment and officially been accredited as a national innovative city. The accreditation reflects the city's in-depth implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy and adherence to "scientific and technological innovation + advanced manufacturing" characteristic development patterns. This “golden signboard” in the sci-tech and innovation field also marks that the city's technological innovation has reached a new level.

Since establishing the national innovative city, Dongguan has comprehensively improved its technological innovation capabilities. Most of the main indicators have reached or been superior to the targets. Songshan Lake Science City was included in the 1st start-up zone of the Comprehensive National Science Center and was officially launched shortly after. The city's comprehensive competitiveness of scientific and technological innovation lists in the top 20 in the country, and the intensity of RundefinedD rose 3.54% in 2020. The city is expected to see 7,387 national high-tech enterprises and over 11,000 industrial enterprises above designated size, which has led to rapid advances in the industry's technical and competitive force. The added value of the advanced and high-tech manufacturing industries accounted for 50.9% and 37.9% of that in industrial enterprises above designated size in 2020, respectively, which was just 47.9% and 37.2% in 2015. Rapid development has effectively promoted the industrial transformation and upgrading and the high-quality development of the regional economy.