Four are listed as national high-tech centers and nine as the city's high-tech centers, making up 44 percent and 26 percent of the total in Shenzhen respectively.

These firms mainly came from Britain and the United States, the newspaper said.

These centers concentrated on telecommunications, software and bio-pharmacy, the paper said.

New technologies developed by the R&D centers were mainly used by the city's export-oriented companies, boosting these firms' output and sales, the newspaper reported.

Among the new products are semi-trailers, which were recently developed by the R&D centers owned by China International Marine Containers Co. (CIMC), the world's largest shipping container maker. CIMC is expected to become the world's largest semi-trailer supplier this year.