BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- China's national high-tech zones have maintained growth despite the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, a senior official said on Thursday.

In May, the revenue of high-tech zones reached 3.27 trillion yuan ( about 467 billion U.S. dollars), up by 10.3 percent year on year, and the export volume reached 319 billion yuan, up by 13.7 percent year on year, said Xu Nanping, Vice Minister of Science and Technology, at a press conference.

With strong scientific and technological innovation capacity, the high-tech zones have shown resilience to risks and registered a higher growth than the national average, Xu said.

In the first quarter of this year, the high-tech zones employed more than 26.56 million people, up by 2.1 percent year on year. A total of 508,000 new jobs were created in high-tech zones during that period, up by 6.7 percent year on year.

China's national high-tech zones play a vital role in underpinning innovation-driven development and establishing valuable experience for China's high-quality economic development, Xu added.