A total of 20 projects developed by enterprises based in Baotou, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, have been approved for autonomous region-level applied technology research and development funds amounting to 12.83 million yuan ($1.87 million), according to Baotou Daily.

The funds, approved by the autonomous region's Finance Department and Science and Technology Department, focus on supporting the city's rare earth, new energy materials, medicine, big data and other major projects.

Six rare earth projects, including the Research on the Application of Rare Earth Ammonia Nitrogen Wastewater project and the Agricultural Waste in Ecological Conversion Technology project developed by the Baotou Research Institute of Rare Earth, obtained funds of 3.98 million yuan.

Seven new energy materials projects including the Development of High Welding Heat Input and High Strength Rare Earth Thick Plates developed by Inner Mongolia Baogang Steel Union Co got funds totaling 4.83 million yuan.

Six medical projects, including the Construction and Promotion of Astragalus Organic Ecological Planting Traceability System developed by Baotou Medical College, got funds of 3.03 million yuan.

One big data project, the Demonstration of R&D and Application Demonstration of Dairy Farm Refined Operation Management System Based on Big Data, developed by Baotou Big Data Research Institute, got funds of 990,000 yuan.