China's 56 leading hi-tech industrial zones have led the country's industrial innovation, playing an important role in the nation's social and economic development, a government statement said Saturday.

The statement came from the Ministry of Science and Technology's Torch High Technology Industrial Development Center.

The center is in charge of China's "Torch Program", which started in 1988 to boost Chinese industrialization through advanced science and technology.

The statement summarized the achievements of the 56 state-level hi-tech industrial zones, which are home to over 50 percent of China's hi-tech firms and provide employment to over 8 million people.

With over 700 research centers and laboratories, research and development expenditure was more than one-third of the national R&D budgets at the zones.

Some 16,020 patents were granted to zone-based firms, accounting for nearly 50 percent of all patents registered to enterprises in 2009.

The hi-tech zones' overall output reached 2.31 trillion yuan (350 million U.S. dollars), or 6.7 percent of 2009 GDP.

Estimated at 284,000 yuan (43,083 U.S. dollars), their GDP per capita was more than 10 times higher the average Chinese person (3,744 U.S. dollars), exceeding that of Japan (39,738 U.S. dollars), according to World Bank 2009 data.

Half a tonne of standard coal energy-equivalent was consumed for every 10,000 yuan of GDP output in the zones, less than half the national level.

Numbers for land-use efficiency, investment density and input-output ratios were also high in the zones.

The statement called on all hi-tech industrial zones to contribute more to China's economic restructuring and development pattern adjustment.