The major digital economy businesses in the city of Quzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, posted a 63.4 percent year-on-year increase in sales in the first half of the year, the largest growth in the province, local media recently reported.

From January to June, Quzhou saw 31 digital economy companies and projects relocate there and online retail sales across the city increased 30.2 percent year-on-year during the period, 10.6 percentage points higher than the provincial average.

Officials said the rapid development of digital economy in the city has mainly relied on complete innovation platforms and high-caliber professionals.

They said the Southeast Digital Economy Development Research Institute is playing an absolutely core role in improving innovation levels for the digital economy in Quzhou and attracting more digital economy talents to the city.

The institute now houses 67 researchers in eight teams covering digital space, virtual reality and three-dimensional information technologies.

It has conducted 17 cooperation projects with universities and institutes, including the University of Technology Sydney, the Institute of Remote Sensing at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Yangtze Delta Region Institute of Tsinghua University.

In addition, since its establishment in late 2018, the institute has also helped attract 23 projects involved in digital economy, which have invested about 300 million ($42.33 million) in Quzhou and are projected to yield roughly 2 billion yuan in sales this year.