The use of advanced domestic products and technologies have helped Chinese industry reach new levels of efficiency and production, senior officials have said.

Zhang Guobao, vice-minister of the State Planning Development Commission, said domestic industrial goods are playing an increasingly important role in China's major industrial and social construction projects.

He was speaking yesterday at the three-day China Industrial High-tech Forum which started in Beijing on Sunday.

The State Council decided to upgrade major domestic-made equipments in 1983 and the central government has since invested 1.1 billion yuan (US$133 million) in subsidies.

Another 2.7 billion yuan (US$326 million) in loans has been ploughed into completing 1,300 key research projects and the invention of more than 200 key technological items.

In 1998, the central government decided to invest another 50 billion yuan (US$6 billion) to support the updating of 517 items of key business equipment.

Currently domestic equipment have been widely used in underground networks in cities, environmental protection, ships and transformer substations.

With the application of domestic equipment, the average cost for the 156 trains used on the second line of the subway system of Guangzhou, capital city of South China's Guangdong Province, was lowered to just US$1.22 million - 33.3 percent less than those used on the first line.

Another example is domestic waste water processing equipment, which function as well as imported ones but cost only one-third or even one-fifth the expenditure.

But experts warned that industrial circles should be more technologically innovative to face ever-growing global competition.

In the 21st century, more scientific breakthroughs are needed in areas like health, ecological sciences and environmental protection, said Lu Yongxiang, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The on-going Industrial High-tech forum consists of 16 sub-forums, each of which focuses on a specific subject including medicine, environmental protection and the aero-space industry.

(China Daily 10/09/2001)