SHANGHAI plans to group government money meant to develop small-scale industries to form an economic transformation fund for better innovation support.

An initial 1 billion yuan (US$157 million) fund will be created to drive the national and Shanghai's efforts to upgrade manufacturing and promote innovation, Li Yaoxin, director of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Information Technology Development, said at a briefing yesterday.

"We are committed to leveraging the power of the capital market to enhance support for businesses to be innovative" to turn Shanghai into an innovation center.