China's spending on research and development (R&D) increased 21.7 percent year-on-year in 2010 as the country pushed for a more innovation-driven economy, according to official statistics released Wednesday.

China put 706.3 billion yuan (111.1 billion U.S. dollars) into R&D last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a joint report with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The investment brought the proportion of R&D funds in the country's gross domestic output (GDP) to 1.76 percent, up 0.06 percentage point from 2009, said the report.

However, that figure still lags behind the average in the world's leading countries, which invest an average of 3 percent of the GDP on R&D.

Spending on science and technological development rose 27.6 percent year-on-year in 2010 to account for 4.58 percent of the state's fiscal expenditure, said the report.

China has been funneling more money into scientific research and technological development in recent years to strengthen its capacity to innovate.

The proportion of GDP spent on R&D grew from 0.9 percent in 2000 to 1.4 percent in 2007, according to the World Bank.

The government aims to make R&D investment account for 2.5 percent of the GDP in 2020, according to the latest national science guideline, which was issued in 2006 by the State Council.