The money used in scientific research and development (R&D) reached 38 billion yuan (4.75 billion U.S. dollars) last year, accounting for 5.6 percent of Beijing's total GDP for the same year, the latest statistics have shown.

Beijing's R&D funds have increased by an annual average of 22.1 percent in the past five years, according to the Beijing Municipal Statistics Bureau.

The R&D funds used by 231 large and medium-sized industrial enterprises which conduct scientific research accounted for 68.4 percent of the total funds used in R&D by all the city's industrial enterprises each with an annual sales volume of five million yuan.

R&D funds were mainly used in the high-tech sector, including telecommunications equipment, computer and other electronic equipment manufacturing and manufacturing of transportation equipment, among others.

Beijing registered application of over 20,000 patents from January to November last year.

The transaction volume of patents reached 1.8 billion yuan (223 million U.S. dollars) by the end of last November, three times the volume for the previous year's same period.

Source: Xinhua