Australia’s innovative future could get a boost from China’s Five-Year Plan

Technology-enabled innovation is set to become a core goal of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan (due to be released in 2016). This comes as Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull increases the rhetoric promoting an innovation policy agenda. Quality growth that lends itself to long-term sustainability is the aim of both China and Australia. But can this be achieved? China’s performance under its current plan encourages a sense of optimism. Its annual R&D spend of US$200 billion has grown four times in just two decades to 2.1% of GDP. This provides hope for the next plan’s success, and should generate interest from an Australian government set on technologically creative development