China's national science popularization funding exceeded 20 billion yuan ($2.74 billion) in 2023 for the first time, reaching a record high, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Last week, the Ministry of Science and Technology released the national science popularization statistics showing that the national science popularization funding reached 21.5 billion yuan last year, an increase of 12.6 percent from 2022.

The main source of funding is public fiscal support from various levels of government, accounting for 77.7 percent of the total.

The data shows that last year, over 3.1 billion yuan was spent on science popularization venue construction, and over 2.2 billion yuan was spent on science popularization exhibits and facilities. The highest proportion of expenditure was on organizing science popularization activities, accounting for close to 40 percent.

The Ministry of Science and Technology stated that the construction of science popularization venues nationwide continued to make steady progress, as a total of 1,779 science museums and science and technology museums were built, an increase of 96 from 2022.

The public is also actively participating in various science popularization activities. Last year, nearly 2 billion people attended a total of 1.3 million online and offline science popularization lectures, averaging more than once per person.

The data showed that the development of the internet has played a critical role in promoting science popularization. Currently, there are over 2,000 science popularization websites nationwide, and over 1 billion people have followed science popularization WeChat official accounts.