R&D spending increases in 2019

A visitor interacts with a portable intelligent robot during the 2019 China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing on May 28, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's spending on research and development hit a high of 2.23 percent of its GDP in 2019, up by 0.09 percentage point from the previous year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Thursday.

China's total expenditure on R&D amounted to 2.214 trillion yuan ($321.3 billion) last year, up 12.5 percent compared with that in 2018, according to a report jointly released by the NBS, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance.