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'Innovation is soul of nation's advancement'

By Wang Yu (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-11 08:48

China is determined to resort to strategy, technology and institutional innovation to maintain sustainable and environmentally friendly development, Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan said at the China Business Summit in Beijing yesterday.

"Innovation is the soul of a nation's advancement, as well as the everlasting driving force for national prosperity," Zeng said.

"During the new phase of further modernization, China wants to achieve scientific development through innovation."

According to the vice-premier, traditional development strategies driving China's economic growth in the past have to change.

"Problems often occur when people tend to pay more attention to quantitative expansion and speed, while ignoring quality. This has often resulted in inefficient and irrational growth," Zeng said.

"We cannot afford to continue with the traditional development approach. Instead, we have to upgrade our development strategies, transforming our growth pattern and optimizing the industrial structure."

Also more effort is needed to bridge the development gap between urban and rural areas, and between different regions of China, to save energy consumption and to protect the environment.

Zeng contended that innovation in development strategies would lead to technological and institutional innovations and thus enhance productivity.

China is pinning high hopes on technological innovation to move forward on the science front and to boost its competitive edge.

China is to devote great efforts to develop key and core technologies in areas such as energy and resources, environmental protection, equipment manufacturing, the IT industry, biology, and aviation and space in the next five years, Zeng revealed.

Regarding institutional reform and innovation in systems, the vice-premier commented that they could provide institutional safeguards for scientific development.

Priorities in institutional reform and innovation involve reforming the administrative system, accelerating corporate reform and establishing modern market systems.

"The objectives of reform is to bring economic and social development on the track of comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development," Zeng said.

(China Daily 09/11/2006 page3)