China's high-tech industry boosted as country seeks independent innovation

Beijing—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.
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 haven arrowed 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.

—Daily Mail, People’s Daily news exchange item