SZ's R&D intensity exceeds EU, Japan

The R&D intensity of Shenzhen’s manufacturing industry has surpassed that of the European Union (EU) and Japan, according to a report released by the Institute of Economics of Shenzhen Academy of Social Sciences, the Shenzhen Economic Daily reported.

The report showed that 332 manufacturing companies from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area that are listed on the Shenzhen and Shanghai bourses spent more than 116.5 billion yuan (US$16.36 billion) on R&D last year. The top 10 companies each spent an average of 6.29 billion yuan on R&D.

Nearly half of the 332 companies are located in Shenzhen and are mainly focused on computer, communications and electronic equipment manufacturing, electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing, and special equipment manufacturing, said the report.

Dong Xiaoyuan, head of the institute, said the information published by the listed companies provides a good perspective to observe industrial innovation in the Greater Bay Area.

According to statistics, in 2018, 71.5 percent of the patents in Guangdong Province came from the manufacturing industry. The R&D investment of 162 listed Shenzhen manufacturers accounted for 55.4 percent of the R&D expenditures of 7,938 manufacturing enterprises above a designated scale in Shenzhen in 2017.

Additionally, among the nine cities in the Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen’s R&D personnel and investment accounted for 60.7 percent and 54.7 percent in 2018, up 1 percentage point and 2.3 percentage points over the previous year, respectively.

The report also pointed out that the United States has the highest R&D intensity worldwide at 6.3 percent. The EU and Japan both had R&D intensity of 3.4 percent, while the R&D intensity of China was 2.8 percent.

In the same period, the R&D intensity of Shenzhen’s manufacturing industry was 5.6 percent, and that of the Greater Bay Area was 4.6 percent.