China's high-tech zones important source of innovation, creativity

China has 178 national high-tech zones as of November, as the country is stepping up its push to cultivate new productivity boosters, the country's top industry regulator said.

Wu Jiaxi, an official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said national high-tech zones have become an important source of innovation in China, an experimental field for institutional and mechanism reform, and an important carrier for high growth enterprises and high-end industrial clusters.

Meanwhile, cultivating and strengthening high-tech industrial clusters in national high-tech zones has become an important cornerstone for ensuring the security of industrial and supply chains, Wu said.

National high-tech zones have supported the construction of 38 national advanced manufacturing clusters, gathering one-third of high-tech enterprises and two-thirds of listed companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR board, Wu said.