China's 56 leading high-tech industrial zones have led the country's industrial innovation, playing an important role in the nation's social and economic development, said a statement from the Ministry of Science and Technology's Torch High Technology Industrial Development Center on Saturday.

The center is in charge of China's "Torch Program", which was started in 1988 to boost Chinese industrialization through advanced science and technology.

The statement summarized the achievements of the 56 State-level high-tech industrial zones, which are home to more than 50 percent of China's high-tech firms and provide jobs for more than 8 million people.

With more than 700 research centers and laboratories, research and development (R&D) expenditure at the zones was more than one-third of the national budget for R&D.

About 16,000 patents were granted to companies in the zones, accounting for nearly half of all patents registered to enterprises in 2009. The high-tech zones' overall output reached 2.31 trillion yuan (US$350 billion), or 6.7 percent of China's 2009 GDP.

GDP per capita in the zones was estimated at 284,000 yuan (US$43,089), more than 10 times higher than the average Chinese person at $3,744, and exceeding that of Japan at US$39,738, according to World Bank 2009 figures.

Half a ton of standard coal energy-equivalent was also consumed for every 10,000 yuan of GDP output in the zones, less than half the national level.

(China Daily January 4, 2011)