Beijing

Great leap forward: the Chinese public is being encouraged to embrace high technology.

China has confirmed its commitment to encouraging closer links between research institutions and industry, and has instructed all government departments to draw up plans for helping to create an innovation-based economy.

Political bodies have called for greater rewards for scientists and engineers responsible for successful innovations. They will now be allowed to hold shares in companies that exploit their inventions commercially.

The endorsement of the importance of high technology to economic prosperity came during a four-day meeting at the end of last month in Beijing, chaired by prime minister Zhu Rongji and attended by president Jiang Zemin and members of the Politburo, the top authority in China's power hierarchy.

The conference was held to increase awareness among party and government officials of the need to boost technological innovation. A statement issued by the party central committee and the state council before the meeting lists various steps to achieve this. These include accelerating the technological upgrading of traditional industries and increasing the knowledge content of the service sector.

Following the meeting, all major government agencies are discussing how to put these principles into practice. “We will come out with an action plan very soon,” says a spokesman for the science ministry.

Science minister Zhu Lilan said the government wanted industries to become the main force in promoting innovation, and that mechanisms should be set up for using venture capital to help achieve this.

Xu Guanhua, vice-minister of the science ministry, said in a television interview that there was inadequate interaction between research institutions and industry in China. As a result, scientific findings were often left unexploited for years. This situation will improve in the future, said Xu, as technological brokers will be given a greater role in bringing research institutions and industry closer.

Xu, an expert on remote sensing and former vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also expressed concern about the low level of state support for research and development. In 1997, China's spending on research and development was only 0.64 per cent of its gross domestic product. In 1998, the total spending in China was less than the increase in spending alone in the United States over the previous year.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences, China's major research organization, was also due to produce an action plan, to be decided by a top-level meeting on 9 September. But no details have been released yet.

The academy was traditionally focused on basic science, but has been dedicating increasing efforts to applied science and industrial research in recent years. It was selected by the government a year ago to be a target for reform under the National Knowledge Innovation Campaign. More radical reforms of the academy are expected to follow from the conference.

Science parks and high-technology industrial development zones will attract more attention as a result of the conference, according to a paper from the science ministry.