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Jasper Becker

China will reorganise its research programmes to help the nation catch up in key technology areas, the annual National Conference on Science and Technology was told early this week.

Science Minister Xu Guanhua said the move was necessary to minimise consequences of the country's entry into the World Trade Organisation.

'The top priority will be information technology,' Mr Xu reportedly told the conference.

He said the ministry planned to propel China into the top ranks of countries designing and manufacturing integrated circuits during the next five to 10 years.

The state would boost research into 12 key technology areas, including high-speed chips, software security systems, electronic administration and finance, functioning gene and bio-chips, electric cars, magnetic levitation trains, new medicines and the modernisation of traditional Chinese medicine.

He said China was faced with the threat of foreign companies patenting genes and achieving a monopoly in the field of bio-engineering. He urged researchers to invest more effort in the field and apply for more patents, and raised the prospect of scientists receiving share options in high-technology ventures.

Together with the Intellectual Property Office, the ministry plans to study the world's latest patent trends.

Mr Xu also addressed the problems of China's brain drain and said the country had to do more to reward key scientists and lure researchers back from abroad.

Two-thirds of China's scientists have stayed abroad after completing studies in foreign universities. China intends to promote researchers quickly to ensure that they stay.

The ministry plans to spend five billion yuan (HK$4.65 billion) on research into the 12 technologies over the next three years, but also is hoping that hi-tech companies will contribute to the national efforts.

Chinese spending on research trebled during the 1990s, but has not kept pace with the expansion of the economy.

In comparison with its Asian neighbours and highly industrialised countries, its relative and absolute spending continues to lag.

Japan doubled its research and development spending between 1997 and 2000 to about 2.4 per cent of its GDP, a figure estimated at US$18 billion (HK$140 billion).

In a still larger economy, the US spends about 2.5 per cent of its GDP.

Analysts say the ministry has failed to meet a 1995 pledge to increase the resources flowing to science and education during the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1995-2000) to 1.5 per cent of GDP by 2000. The ratio of research and development spending to GDP has not changed since 1991, staying at about 0.5 per cent.

In 1997, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) launched a new and ambitious restructuring, closing down many institutes and pensioning off many staff to concentrate resources on a small number of technologies.

CAS was given a 5.4 billion yuan grant, including 600 million yuan to recruit 200 young scholars from abroad, to put China on the path of the 'knowledge economy'.

Another key scheme, the State Key Basic Research and Development Programme, started in 1999 with a 2.5 billion yuan budget over five years.



12 fields targeted as ministry aims to propel mainland towards global forefront of key sciences