Shandong has made innovation a top priority in both this year's government work report and the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), local media reported.

Innovation is the primary driving force behind development and it is the strategic foundation for building a modernized economy, said local authorities.

Zhou Ning, director of the Weihai municipal statistics bureau, said that investment in innovation and R&D should be more focused on the real economy, which is dominated by manufacturing, especially high-tech manufacturing and strategic emerging industries.

Zhou suggested that Shandong speed up the planning and construction of a multi-center regional innovation pattern and lead technological development for domestic industry by relying on the industrial foundations and characteristic advantages of Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai, and other cities.

"The local government needs to create a suitable environment for enterprises to innovate," said Li Haibo, deputy director of the Institute of Science and Technology for the Development of Shandong.

Li suggested that the local government provide strong services related to the formulation of standards and the protection of intellectual property, as well as provide more actionable and practical policy support for the fault-tolerant mechanism for scientific and technological innovation.