From developing therapeutic vaccines to biotechnology breeding, China has mapped out measures to develop bio-economy in the 14th Five Year Plan (2021-2125) with the rollout of a new development plan. The bio-economy includes a wide range of biotic resources developed with bio-technology, such as smart wearable products for remote diagnosis. It covers many industries such as bio-agriculture, biomedicine, bio-energy and so forth, and is characterized as being highly profitable, with a large market and a high threshold. According to the development plan rolled out by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China has already made significant achievements in the bio-economy over recent years, and the 14th Five Year Plan period is an important window of opportunity for the sector.
The NDRC listed the development targets of China’s bio-economy industries by 2025. For example, the total scale of the bio-economy will “reach a new stage,” while the proportion of the bio-economy's added value in domestic GDP will also experience stable growth. The country should also see an “evident increase” in bio-economy companies with annual revenue of over CNY10 billion. Bai Jingyu, Director of the Center of Innovation-driven Development under the NDRC noted during a press conference that China is aiming to achieve CNY22 trillion of total bio-economy output by the end of 2025, with the core industries amounting to more than CNY7.5 trillion. The NDRC also listed a number of pillar industries, saying that the country would speed up the integration between bio-technologies and information technologies. In particular, it noted that China would speed up upgrading vaccine research and production technologies, develop polyvalent vaccines and therapeutic vaccines to increase China’s capability in dealing with major infectious diseases. China will also accelerate the industrial application of fields like biological breeding to safe-guard the supply of agricultural products including grain and oil, as well as research new food like artificial protein to lower the environmental and resources pressure arising from traditional breeding industries, the Global Times reports.
