The city of Ordos – located in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – has reportedly made significant progress in promoting its "three zeros" program for industrial enterprises above a designated size: those with an annual revenue of 20 million yuan ($3.1 million) or more.

The "three zeros" refers to industrial enterprises above a designated size that have no R&D investment, no R&D institutions and no invention patents.

The program aims to improve the R&D investment of local companies, as well as their capacity through positive incentive policies and reverse force mechanisms.

The policies include tax exemptions for research and development investment, subsidies for research expenses and preferential income taxes for high-tech enterprises.

Industrial enterprises with insufficient R&D momentum will not be granted subsidies from the financial science and technology funds. 

Meanwhile, R&D investment will be linked to the application of sci-tech projects, the winning of sci-tech awards and recommendations and the application of high-tech enterprises and R&D institutions – in a bid to encourage enterprises to increase their R&D investment.

At present, Ordos has an estimated 452 industrial enterprises above a designated size. Of these, 117 enterprises have reportedly achieved breakthroughs in relation to the "three zeros", an increase of 40 compared with that in 2020.

Ordos is understood to have established 50 enterprise R&D institutions, registered more than 1,000 invention patents and built five technology business incubators at or above the autonomous region level.

It also currently has 44 business incubators, 24 high-tech enterprises and 170 technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises.