Guangzhou ranked second in China, behind only Beijing, in terms of its technical contract turnover in 2020, according to statistics released on Feb 24 by the Ministry of Science and Technology's Torch High Technology Industry Development Center.

The technical contract turnover of Guangzhou in 2020 reached 225.65 billion yuan ($34.89 billion). First place went to Beijing, where the figure amounted to 631.61 billion yuan. 

The technical contract turnover is an important index in measuring the industrial application of scientific and technological achievements.

Guangzhou's technical contract turnover increased by nearly seven times during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20). The city's technical contract turnover in 2019 was 127.34 billion yuan, which was the highest in Guangdong province. The figure in 2020 increased by 77 percent year-on-year to more than 200 billion yuan.

The technical contract turnover of five districts in Guangzhou - namely Tianhe, Huangpu, Yuexiu, Haizhu and Nansha - exceeded 10 billion yuan in 2020.

A total of 91.11 percent of Guangzhou's technical contract turnover was made by local companies, with the overall number reaching 205.59 billion yuan, up 72.06 percent year-on-year.  

The technical contract turnover of areas including electronic information, urban construction and social development, advanced manufacturing, new energy and high efficiency energy saving, biological medicine and medical equipment in Guangzhou reached more than 10 billion yuan in 2020, while the electronic information industry topped all other sectors with an overall figure of 66.02 billion yuan. 

The technical contract turnover attracted by Guangzhou from overseas in 2020 amounted to 14.76 billion yuan - a growth of 29 times year-on-year - while the technical contract turnover that Guangzhou itself made overseas in 2020 was 26.63 billion yuan, an increase of 107.91 percent.