The Long March 11 carrier rocket blasts off from a mobile launch platform in the Yellow Sea of the eastern province of Shandong on June 5, 2019. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/chinadaily.com.cn]

The province of Shandong has identified innovation as the "primary driving force" for local social and economic development and has been ramping up efforts to create a good institutional environment and promote a culture of innovation over the past five years.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), the proportion of output value of Shandong's high-tech industries in the total industrial output value above the scale increased from 32.51 percent in 2015 to 44.46 percent in the third quarter of 2020, an increase of 11.95 percentage points.

The province's scientific and technological innovation capacity is now in a leading position within the country, said the Shandong Provincial Department of Science and Technology.

In the past five years, Shandong has made a number of major scientific and technological achievements. Examples include a maglev train with a designed speed of 600 km/h successfully completing a test run in Qingdao in June, and the "Jimai 44" setting the record of super strong gluten wheat yield per unit area in China.

According to the Shandong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, the province has also taken the lead in scientific and technological innovation and industrialization in more than 20 fields, including intelligent transportation, fuel cell, carbon fiber, and drug innovation.

The number of high-tech enterprises in the province is expected to exceed 14,000 this year, 3.5 times that of 2015, official data showed.

To date, the province has 225 science and technology business incubators at or above the provincial level, and 419 maker spaces at or above the provincial level. Among them, 98 are State-level incubators, and 242 are State-level maker spaces, ranking the third and second in China respectively.