By LI Linxu

As part of China's innovation push, evaluation of the innovation capacity of cities has played an important role in implementing its strategy going forward.

A new batch of 25 cities, including Baoding, Wenzhou, Bengbu, Xinxiang, Liuzhou and Yingkou, are selected to build innovative cities, according to a notification released by the Ministry of Science and Technology on January 6.

A road cable-stayed bridge in Baoding city, Hebei province. The city is among the list to build innovative cities released by MOST. (PHOTO: VCG)

Among them, there are 12 cities located in Eastern China, nine cities in Central China, three cities in Western China and one city in Northeast China.

In 2008, Shenzhen became the first pilot innovative city in China. Two years later, another 16 cities, including Dalian, Shenyang and Qingdao, were also selected as pilot innovative cities.

Since then, significant achievements have been made in the building of innovative cities. Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou ranks second in the TOP100 Global S&T Clusters, and Dalian, Shenyang and Qingdao recorded the biggest increases in ranking, according to Global Innovation Index 2021.

Currently, more than 100 cities have been included on the list. They will further deepen reform and opening-up, optimize the ecology of innovation and entrepreneurship, promote the transformation of sci-tech achievements, and expand international cooperation, according to the notification.