ICS Occasional Papers

China is emerging as one major R&D business interest as the global R&D operations started to expand their geographic reach to selected destinations. The fast paced growth in both the domestic and foreign investment in R&D is often interpreted as China’s domination in the global technological competition. This paper investigates the regional differences and ownership pattern of technology and innovation in China’s industrial enterprises. Our results illustrate the increasing importance of R&D expenditures as a driving force for generating innovation in China. However, the provinces of Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shandong, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shanghai are found to dominate in the R&D expenditures, number of inventions, new product development expenditures, sales revenue and export of new product for Chinese industrial enterprises. It is also be observed that the share of domestically-owned enterprises remains prominent in the criteria like R&D expenditures, inventions, new product development, expenditure on new product development and sales revenue in China.