Premier Zhu Rongji, also Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Wednesday afternoon delivered a speech to 1,200 academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The academicians were here attending the two academies' 11th and 6th conferences respectively, that both opened Tuesday.

Extending his warm congratulations on behalf of the state, he gave his heartfelt thanks to the academicians for their contributions and indefatigable effort made for national rejuvenation and economic construction through developing science and education.

Zhu specifically spoke at length on the problem of economic situation of wide concern in China, calling for greater new success on various lines of national construction for the holding of the 16th National Conference of the CPC coming year.

Under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering gather a big throng of seasoned erudite men -- elites representing and advancing China's science and technology, he said. Heavy tasks and responsibilities are confronting the two Chinese academies and academicians under the new situation.

Conscientious painstaking effort and down-to-earth work on the part of the two Chinese academies and academicians in putting into practice Comrade Jiang Zemin's "three represents" thinking and their positive service in boosting and upgrading China's science and technology are indispensable for China's development.

With sound innovation systems being built, a multitudinous number of scientific and technological forces brought to the fore, China's development and its science and technology construction would be ensured, said the premier.

He expects that more new scientific technological innovations and discoveries would be recorded and greater scientific technological heights could be scaled and new feats created by the broad mass of Chinese scientists and technologists in honoring the great hope of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese nation.

(People's Daily May 30, 2002)