Seventeen companies from Ningbo recently made the 2021 list of top 100 creative companies in Zhejiang province, according to local media reports.

The ranking, which was released by the Zhejiang provincial bureau of market supervision, evaluated the creativity of companies in Zhejiang based on factors including the number of valid invention patents, the number of high-value invention patents and the number of invention patents granted in the last three years.

Notably, Ningbo-based home appliance brand Fotile was ranked third on the list, eclipsing some tech giants including Netease and Alibaba.

Founded in 1996 in Ningbo, Fotile is a manufacturer of kitchen household utensils. The company designs, produces, and sells kitchen appliances such as range hoods, stoves, disinfection cabinets, microwaves, and dishwashers.

Official data shows that Fotile had 1,460 valid invention patents, including 209 high-value invention patents, as of the end of last year. In the past three years, nearly 1,100 invention patents of the company were authorized.

Ningbo also saw four newcomers on the list - Ningbo Geely Automobile Research Institute Development Co Ltd, Ningbo Fangzheng Tool Co Ltd, Forehope Electronic (Ningbo) Co Ltd and Ningbo Cixing Co Ltd.

The city's innovation capability has improved significantly in recent years.

A total of 72,390 patents were authorized in Ningbo in 2021, up 19.5 percent year-on-year, local authorities announced at a news conference on April 26. The number of invention patents rose 46.4 percent year-on-year to 7,819, bringing the total number of valid invention patents owned by the city to 38,289, a figure that is nearly double that total 6 years ago.

The local government has set a goal of increasing the international patent applications filed via WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), one of the most widely used metrics for measuring innovative activity, to more than 1,000 by 2025.