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R&D investment up in 2014 but still lags West

China's investment in research and development has consistently gone up with the country seeking to find a new competitive edge as the era of cheap labor and fast exports ends, a report showed on Monday. R&D expenditure reached 1.3 trillion yuan ($204 billion) in 2014, up 9.9 percent from the previous year. Last year's R&D expenditure equaled 2.05 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Still, it is lower than that of developed countries, particularly those in the West.