A view of Taizhou in East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/taizhou.com.cn]

Taizhou in East China's Zhejiang province was recently designated as a pilot city by the China Association of Science and Technology (CAST) to facilitate the integration of science and technology with the economy.

CAST is the largest non-governmental organization of scientific and technological professionals in China, which now possesses 210 national member societies and local branches all over the country.

By leveraging its resources in talents, technologies, and organization networks, CAST will help the pilot cities achieve high-standard social and economic development by spurring innovation vitality, as well as promoting the in-depth integration of science and technology with the economy.

In recent years, Taizhou has made steady progress in improving its innovation strength.

In 2020, the proportion of Taizhou's spending on research and development (R&D) in GDP reached 2.4 percent. The number of invention patents per 10,000 people from the city increased by 2.26 to 24.5 during the 13th-Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period.

It has also been approved to be a pilot city for the construction of the national intellectual property operation service system.

The city's added value of high-tech industries accounted for 62.14 percent of its total industrial added value in 2020, up from 43.07 percent in 2015.

By the end of last year, Taizhou was home to 1,200 national high-tech enterprises, 5,566 provincial small and medium-sized technological enterprises, as well as 2,261 enterprise R&D institutions above the municipal level, including 18 national enterprise technology centers and 629 provincial enterprise R&D institutions, official data show.

In addition, the city also housed four provincial high-tech industrial parks, 23 technological enterprise incubators, 88 maker spaces, and 44 industrial innovation service complexes.

From 2016 to 2020, a total of 320 leading professionals at or above the provincial level, as well as 156,000 new high-skilled workers were introduced to Taizhou.