AS the first national innovative city and a State demonstration area of independent innovation, Shenzhen is now poised to turn itself into a world-class innovative city by 2035. It was unveiled by a city government decision on quickening quality development of the high-tech industry released Friday.

Shenzhen will strive to become an important pole in the global innovation layout by accelerating all-round innovation with scientific innovation at the core and establishing an innovation-leading economic system, the decision said.

This ambitious goal will be accomplished in three steps. First, the city will become a basically modern and international innovative city by 2022, with expenditure on research and development representing over 4.28 percent of its annual GDP and industrial added value accounting for 40 percent of its annual GDP.

Three years later, the city will have evolved into an international hub for scientific and technological innovation, with a world-class high-tech industry. By 2035, it expects to be the global capital of sustainable innovation and creativity with world-leading industrial competitiveness and competitive power in science and technology.

Priority will be given to emerging industries of strategic importance, such as new-generation information technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things and blockchain. Industrial structures will be further upgraded to help the city develop into a world-class high-tech industrial cluster. The application of AI technologies will be promoted in manufacturing, finance, logistics, retail and medical services.

Restrictions will be eased so more high-tech achievements can be put into mass production, and a committee will be set up to evaluate the legal, scientific and moral impacts of new technologies used in the sectors of life and health, AI, and automatic driving.

The city government will allocate some areas to pilot the new economic development in order to set a national example.

The city will also build an innovation demonstration zone for the sustainable development of new technologies for building a smart city, improving the environment, upgrading public services and public safety facilities, modernizing social governance, and promoting the integration of social development with scientific innovation.

More preferential policies will be unveiled to attract high-end innovative talents from around the world, and the city will create a more open and tolerant environment for startups to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.

Shenzhen will strengthen the protection and use of intellectual property rights, in order to develop intellectual property and encourage innovation. It will improve rules and regulations related to intellectual property rights and push harder against IPR infringement by raising the cost of IPR crimes.

In 2016, the number of PCT applications in the city reached 19,600, up 13.7 percent from the previous year, and topping large and medium-sized Chinese cities for the 13th consecutive year. The rate of patent ownership per 10,000 people reached 80.1, topping all Chinese cities.

In 2015, Shenzhen took four out of the 10 seats on the Forbes list of China-U.S. innovative figures, according to the official website of the city government.

(Li Jing)