China’s R&D spending tops OECD average for first time. What comes next? - South China Morning Post
Sherry Wangin BeijingPublished: 2:01pm, 30 Sep 2026For the first time, China’s spending on research and development as a share of gross domestic product has surpassed the average for Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) members – a trend one analyst expects to continue as Beijing seeks to strengthen technological self-reliance amid intensifying global competition.
R&D expenditure exceeded 3.92 trillion yuan (US$584.8 billion) in 2025, accounting for 2.8 per cent of GDP, Science and Technology Minister Yin Hejun said at a press conference on Tuesday. The OECD average stood at 2.7 per cent for the year, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.
Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said the achievement showed how China’s investment in innovation had reached a level comparable to that of developed economies. He expected the share of GDP devoted to R&D to keep rising, with a greater focus on optimising funding allocation and improving research efficiency.
“We must continuously increase the proportion of investment in basic research to build a solid foundation for ‘zero-to-one’ original breakthroughs,” Wang said, while ensuring that “large-scale R&D investments translate more efficiently into industrial competitiveness”.
