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China to help firms play leading role in innovation
By Wu Chong (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-12-24 07:34
China has decided to push domestic enterprises to play a leading role
in technological innovation starting next year, with a package of preferential
financial and tax policies.
The State Council is studying related proposals about the new policies, said
Li Xueyong, vice-minister of science and technology, at the launch of the
"Technological Innovation" campaign on Friday. But he declined to reveal
details.
Facing a lack of research and development (R&D) funds, the nationwide
campaign aims to strengthen domestic companies' self-innovation capability.
"Enterprises will be given more chances in the future to lead the country's
key scientific and technological projects," Li said. "They will be encouraged to
shoulder more of the State and local major researches."
Colleges and institutes are currently driving China's primary projects in
this field.
Li said next year will witness a "sharp increase" in the central and local
budgets allocated to enterprises for their research and development. But the
specific figure is currently unavailable.
The Shenzhen government in South China's Guangdong Province promised that it
will inject no less than 10 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) in inspiring the
self-innovation of local companies in the coming five years.
"The investment from companies will be much more," said Lu Jian, deputy
director with the Shenzhen Science, Technology and Information Bureau.
Several hundred companies across the country will be chosen as pilots for the
campaign next year, Li said. Later, the programme will be expanded to all
high-tech firms, large and medium-sized companies, as well as leading companies
in a certain industry in letting them get funds to upgrade their R&D centres
to State-level ones.
In China, only one-fourth of the more than 28,000 large and medium-sized
enterprises have established their own R&D centres.
"If only the number triples could we call it a big leap forward," Li said.
"In the high-tech industry, almost all of the patents for pivotal
technologies are monopolized by foreign enterprises."
A lack of R&D funds is the bottleneck. The latest survey from the
Ministry of Science and Technology shows that domestic companies only spend 0.56
per cent of their sales income in research and development. Meanwhile, in
developed countries, the proportion is 5 per cent.
Liu Xiaodong, deputy director with the Liaoning Provincial Department of
Science and Technology in Northeast China, said the central government should
lend more favourable policies to help lower the costs of R&D for companies.
(China Daily 12/24/2005 page2)
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