Citing the Global Innovation Index 2023, which was issued by the World Intellectual Property Organization, Shen added that China had owned 24 of the top 100 science and technology clusters by the end of last year, ranking first in the world for the first time.

According to the index, in 2023, as in previous years, the top 100 S&T clusters were concentrated in three regions, namely, Northern America, Europe and Asia, and more specifically, in two countries: China and the United States.

For the first time in 2023, China was the economy that had the most clusters ranked among the top 100, overtaking the US with 21 clusters unchanged on the year, the index said.

Data released by Shen on Wednesday showed that China authorized 921,000 invention patents last year, up 15.3 percent year-over-year.

More than 6.4 million works were registered as copyrights last year, an increase of 42.3 percent compared with that in 2022, he said.