As official figures show Chinese economic growth is increasingly dependent on technological advancement, the government has pledged to create a better policy environment to facilitate research and development.

Technological improvement contributed 56.2 percent to economic development in 2016, highlighting the increasingly important role of creativity in the economy, according to the annual government work report, which was delivered by Premier Li Keqiangon Sunday at the opening of the National People's Congress (NPC).

Last year, China further implemented the strategy of promoting innovation-driven development, and a number of world-leading technological breakthroughs have been achieved, Li said.

Beijing and Shanghai were selected by the central government to become "technological creative centers with global influence." Six State-level pilot creative industrial parks were established, and the number of patents for inventions surpassed 1 million, while the trade volume of technological patents surpassed 1 trillion yuan.

According to the report, China will support both a national strategy to boost heavyweight technological research programs and foster small- and medium-sized tech enterprises with means like tax breaks.

　　Excited about AI

"The days when China sustained its economic growth primarily through secondary industry have long gone," said Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based independent industry analyst. Liu said the tertiary sector already accounts for more than half of the economy.

This year, China will accelerate the development of new industries, including artificial intelligence (AI) and fifth-generation telecommunications, among others, the report said.

Chinese tech tycoons were excited about the first inclusion of AI in the government work report. Widely perceived as the next industrial revolution, "AI will surely promote the Chinese economy," Lei Jun, CEO of leading tech firm Xiaomi, wrote in his motion to the NPC, citing a research report by Accenture Institute. The US-based consultancy said that the impact of AI on business is projected to boost labor productivity by up to 40 percent.

As an NPC deputy, Lei on Monday proposed the Chinese government should issue more support for R&D into AI and to attract talented developers.

Amid the economic slowdown and rising labor costs, the Chinese government is resolved to infuse traditional industries with new technologies. The National Development and Reform Commission plans to see domestic AI applications worth hundreds of billions of yuan by 2018.

Lei believes that in the following five to 10 years, Chinese phone makers will be able to compete for leadership of the global smartphone market.

"Chinese firms can battle with their overseas peers with their value-for-money products, which are not only low-cost, but also feature technological breakthroughs and innovation," said Lei.

Such confidence is supported by Xiaomi's recent technological breakthroughs in the mobile processor market which has been predominantly controlled by US chip giant Qualcomm. On February 28, Xiaomi introduced its own in-house medium- and high-end mobile processor to become the world's fourth phone maker to manufacture its own chips.

　　Big data province

The role of technology in boosting local economies is probably best exemplified in Guizhou Province, in Southwest China. In March 2016, the central government decided to establish the country's first State-level big data industrial park in Guizhou, a mountainous province that is economically backward. The program is aimed at cultivating a number of leading companies in the industry and transforming the local economy in three to five years. Through the pioneering industry, Guizhou is expected to lead economic development among Chinese provinces in the foreseeable future.

By 2016, there were 39 companies dedicated to big data services in Guizhou, with a supporting network of more than 800 companies, creating business worth 320 billion yuan ($46.4 billion) in the high-tech sector in the traditionally rural province.

Ma Changqing, an NPC deputy from Guizhou, said the province has attracted China's three major telecom operators as well as Qualcomm and Huawei, and that the national big data laboratories based in the province are serving enterprises around the country.

"Although China has become a world leader in a number of high-tech sectors including AI, obstacles remain for the country to become a global tech center," said Liu Dingding.

In order to boost the creativity of talented tech workers, the work report has urged reforms in universities and institutes to provide shares and dividends to employees and better allocate funding.

China will also aim to attract talent from overseas with effective measures in order to realize the ambition of innovation, the report states.