China's high-tech industry has grown an average of 27 percent
each year for the last five years, according to a senior Chinese
official.
Wu Zhongze, vice minister of science and technology, said the
total production value of the industry accounted for 16 percent of
China's manufacturing.
"Chinese manufacturing has made great progress in upgrading
itself by applying more high-tech technologies," said Liu Yong, a
researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
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Chinese companies have become more interested in controlling
core technologies by developing major equipment manufacturing
industries, such as automobile and shipbuilding in which homegrown
or innovative high-tech technologies have allowed domestic products
to substitute imports.
Domestic car makers enjoyed a 17-percent share of China's total
auto sales in 2007 and some key breakthroughs in shipbuilding have
narrowed the technological gap between the Chinese and its east
Asian competitors Japan and the Republic of Korea.
Vice Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong also said that China would
continue to come up with more policies in 2008 to encourage foreign
capital to invest in high-tech manufacturing and environmental
conservation industries.
Chinese President Hu Jintao said in his report to the 17th
National Congress of the Communist Party of China that China should
"improve the capacity for independent innovation" and "promote the
translation of scientific and technological advances into practical
productive forces".
So far, Chinese governments at all levels have built up 230
institutions and 32 software bases to help manufacturers master
more independent innovations and technologies.
China's 54 national high-tech industry zones have attracted
about half of the Chinese high-tech enterprises and one third of
research and developing funds of the whole country, according to
the Ministry of Science and Technology.
"These high-tech zones have become important bases for China to
develop independent innovation," said Li Xueyong, another vice
minister of science and technology.
(Xinhua News Agency January 6, 2008)
