The 2021 Qingdao Innovation Festival kicked off on Dec 10 in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province, as part of the city's efforts to boost industrial upgrading and facilitate innovation-driven development.

The 2021 Qingdao Innovation Festival kicks off on Dec 10 in Qingdao, Shandong province. [Photo/iqilu.com]

Ten new products with disruptive innovation value were launched at the opening ceremony. The innovative products cover a wide range of fields including new materials, big data, the internet, modern agriculture, and aerospace science and technology.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently released the 19th Report on The Competitiveness of Chinese Cities, which compares the leading power of scientific and technological innovation of Chinese cities in 2021. It ranked Qingdao 10th from its previous 15th ranking. Qingdao is the only northern city other than Beijing listed in the top 10 in the academy's report.

Smart agriculture application solutions are released at the opening ceremony. [Photo/iqilu.com]

The City Innovation Capacity Monitoring Report 2020 released by the Ministry of Science and Technology also ranked Qingdao 10th, which once again proved the city's capacity for scientific and technological innovation.

According to official statistics, more than 6,000 enterprises in Qingdao have passed the national evaluation for small and medium-sized scientific and technological enterprises. The total number of listed high-tech enterprises in Qingdao has reached 36.

Sailun Group’s innovative product is released at the opening ceremony. [Photo/iqilu.com]

In the first three quarters of this year, the R&D expenditure of Qingdao's industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 29.5 percent year-on-year, which is higher than the growth rate of the industrial added value. The revenue of scientific research and technology services in the city increased by 53.4 percent year-on-year.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), the city will continue to build an internationally competitive intelligent manufacturing and innovative city, focusing on the marine economy, smart home appliances, next generation information technology, new energy vehicles, rail transit equipment and other key industries as well as aerospace, biomedicine, new energy and new materials and other emerging industries, Qingdao officials said.