China's economic, social progress in 2023:Achievements in science, technology and education for future new quality productive forces

The year 2023 is the first year to fully implement the guiding principles of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and a year for economic recovery and development following three years of COVID-19 prevention and control. China has witnessed solid progress on a new journey toward building China into a modern socialist country in all respects.

At the forefront of this transformative path lies the concept of the "new quality productive force," emphasized in China’s 2024 government work report. This concept stands as a pivotal element in China's quest for a modernized and technologically advanced society, with a focus on high-tech, high efficiency, and high quality. Throughout 2023, China made notable progress in science, technology and education, laying a solid foundation for future development.

Here are some highlights:

Recent statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics reveal R&D expenditures of 3,327.8 billion yuan in 2023, an 8.1 percent increase over the previous year, constituting 2.64 percent of the GDP.

- By the end of 2023, there were altogether 207 national engineering research centers included into the new sequence management and 1,798 state-level enterprise technology centers. -The National Fund for Technology Transfer and Commercialization established 36 sub-funds, with a total funding of 62.4 billion yuan. -A total of 921 thousand invention patents were authorized, up by 15.3 percent over that of the previous year.

-The proportion of citizens with scientific literacy in China reached 14.14 percent.

-In 2023, graduate institutes enrolled 3.883 million students with 1.302 million entrants and 1.015 million graduates.