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

The statement came from the Ministry of Science and Technology, which seeks to boost industrialization through science and technology.

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

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

The high-tech zones' overall output reached 2.31 trillion yuan ($350.53 billion), or 6.7 percent of 2009 GDP.

Estimated at 284,000 yuan ($42,230), their GDP per capita was more than 10 times higher the average Chinese person ($3,744), according to World Bank 2009 data. Half a ton 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.