BEIJING: Scaling up the technological ladder and focusing on self-reliance on key technologies topped the agenda in the 2021 Government Work Report, delivered on Friday by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
Chinese analysts said the blueprints and work method detailed in the report could lead to a big step forward in the volume and structure of research and development spending and be conducive for China’s efforts to narrow its gap with the US in technology.
Detailing some of the concrete targets to be achieved during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period in the Government Work Report, Premier Li said the country will strive for above 7 percent annual growth in R&D (Research and development) spending, and will account for a higher percentage of GDP than that during the 13th Five-Year Plan period to keep up the country’s momentum to scale the ladder of technology.
“Innovation remains at the heart of China’s modernization drive. We will strengthen our science and technology to provide strategic support for China’s development,” Li said.
In the context of a brewing tech war with the US, the world’s leading tech power, further input into R&D stays at the core of China’s developmental bottlenecks, as the country is a determined manufacturing power that, in current times, can only be described as big but not strong, said Cong Yi, a professor at the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics.
“The world’s No.1 industrial production capacity and the most complete industrial systems desperately need more fruits from original innovation so that it can move up the value chain,” Cong told the Global Times on Friday.
Continued efforts to boost R&D spending will further narrow China’s technology gap with the US, Cong said.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
