Beijing's Zhongguancun sees fastest revenue growth

BEIJING - Beijing's high-tech zone Zhongguancun saw fast revenue growth in the first eight months this year despite the country's economic slowdown, statistics show.

The revenue of high-tech enterprises above a designated size in the zone reached 2.49 trillion yuan ($373 billion), an increase of 16.4 percent year-on-year, the fastest this year, said the Beijing Statistics Bureau.

The six key high-tech sectors including new materials, electronics and information, in the zone, all maintained rapid growth, said the bureau.

Innovation continued to be active among the companies. From Jan to Aug, the number of R&D personnel in Zhongguancun totalled 544,000, an increase of 5.8 percent from the same period last year.

The companies' daily R&D expenditure grew 16.4 percent year-on-year to reach 85 billion yuan during the period.

Zhongguancun, known as "China's Silicon Valley," has the biggest concentration of listed technology companies in China.

The high-tech park plays a vital role in the country's plan to transform Beijing into a national scientific and technological innovation hub.