The Ministry of Science and Technology will earmark 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million) annually to support the construction and development of high-tech enterprise incubators over the next 10 years.

Sources said that construction of incubators will not be limited to high-tech development zones, but will also extend to universities, scientific research institutes and State-owned enterprises.

China has built more than 200 high-tech enterprise incubators since the first one was established in 1987. The incubators are nursing over 5,290 enterprises, in addition to 1,900 plus enterprises which have matured.

The combined annual revenue of these enterprises is over 21.7 billion yuan (US$2.6 billion), and they provide 164,000 jobs.