Jul.7 (China Daily) -- Since its establishment in 1991, the Xi'an High-tech Industrial Development Zone, one of China's top national-level industrial zones, has helped transform a sleepy suburb into the most developed area in Xi'an, the capital of China's northwestern Shaanxi province.

Residents in the high-tech zone, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, have the highest average income in the city. As the Chinese government attaches increasing importance to innovation and entrepreneurship, the Xi'an zone, which has helped thousands of startups grow and develop, is expected to see faster growth in the coming years.

In 2015, the zone was named a national proprietary innovation demonstration area, which is expected to accelerate its industrial restructuring and innovation-driven growth, local officials said.

The zone has been charged with maintaining an annual economic growth rate of 13 percent during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), higher than the estimated national level in the following five years.

Companies registered in the zone are projected to generate 2.5 trillion yuan ($380 billion) in annual revenue by 2020, with yearly growth of 15 percent.

The zone's GDP growth is expected to amount to around 13 percent by then. The budgetary financial revenue of the zone is forecast to reach 20 billion yuan by 2020 at an annual increase of 15 percent, according to the plan.

The self-innovation level will be greatly improved, said local officials.

By 2020, research and development investment is projected to account for 6 percent of the zone's overall investment.

About 7,000 new invention patents are expected to be granted in the zone by 2020.

"During this period, the environment and conditions for startups will get even better," said Zhao Hongzhuan, Party chief of the zone. "During the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15), the zone introduced 118,000 skilled professionals.

"The zone has already become the center of talent in Northwest China."

In 2015, there were 372,000 people working in the zone, of whom 78 percent held bachelor's degrees.

The zone has attracted high-end professionals with 40 working stations for postdoctoral research, ranking first in central and western China.

The zone authority said it is working on building 50 national-level engineering centers and technology development centers and labs by 2020 as innovation ability grows in the area.

During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the industrial structure improved greatly in the zone thanks to its rich human resources and supportive policies.

The proportion of the service industry surpassed that of secondary industry in the zone in 2015, accounting for 54 percent of the total.

In particular, the revenue of the modern service sector in the zone was 380 billion yuan last year, accounting for 43 percent of the four major industries. The other three are electronic information, advanced manufacturing and biomedicines.

The modern service industry covers various sectors including technology, finance and innovative design. Among them, the scale of technological services has been growing rapidly and accounted for more than 40 percent of all service businesses in 2015.

The zone is an important industrial base for semiconductors in China and a manufacturing center of the world's smartphones, Zhao said.

Xi'an has thousands of enterprises engaged in the IT industry, including Qualcomm, GE, Ericsson, Micron, Walsin, Simmtech Electronics, NEC, ZTE and Huawei. Most are located in the high-tech zone.

In 2015, revenue from the electronic information industry in the high-tech zone reached 199 billion yuan.