Four Shenzhen-based companies yesterday beat about 100 competitors to win this year's BlueSky Award, a global honor instituted to help boost sustainable development.

Six other companies from other Chinese cities and foreign countries also won the award.

Shenzhen Mayor Xu Zongheng presented a trophy to the top winner, a German research center, at a ceremony at the Wuzhou Guest House. He told the audience that the city hopes to be a leader in developing a recycling economy, like it was in the reform and opening-up drive back in the 1980s.

"The city's legislature has written recycling economy into law, and drawn up a long-term strategy for that cause," he said.

Nearly 100 companies, research institutes and individuals from a dozen nations applied for the award this year. The organizing committee selected 26 technologies and exhibited them at the Eighth China Hi-Tech Fair.

A panel of nine experts, including Edgar Schicker, professor at the University for Applied Sciences of Nuremberg, Binu Parthan, a renewable energy program leader from Austria, and Pan Yuan, a Chinese engineering academician, voted to select the top 10 winners yesterday. Votes from more than 1 million netizens and around 100 industry insiders present at the awards ceremony also had a 40 percent say in the selection.

The awarded, co-sponsored by the United Nation Industrial Development Organization and the Shenzhen International Technology Promotion Center for Sustainable Development, was instituted in 2005 to commend the utilization of new technology in renewable energy.

The Karlsruhe Research Center, which won the top award, developed a method of producing synthetic fuels from biomass via bioslurry gasification.

"I feel honored to be part of the award," said Dr. Rainer Korber from the center. "I wish that one day the mankind can generate all that energy it needs from renewable energy sources," he said. "Let's face up to the challenge."

Chen Wukui, chairman of Shenzhen Topray Solar Co. Ltd., which came third, said the award would be a good promotion for his firm within China.

"Actually, 95 percent of our products, a silicon solar energy wall used for buildings, are sold to overseas markets, including 70 percent reaching the United States and European countries," he said. The glass wall is used to generate power using solar energy.

"More than 50 research staff of my firm spent two years on the technology, which was put into production in 2004," Chen said.

"I hope the award can open our door in the domestic markets."

"The expert panel look at three factors in choosing the award winners," said Yan Luguang, academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "The technology taps renewable energy like solar, wind, ocean or geothermic resources; It has innovation and preferably, with a patent; It can enter the markets and be widely used."

Shenzhen Energy Environmental Engineering Co. Ltd., Shenzhen Green Power Solar Technology Co. Ltd., and Shenzhen Puxin Science And Technology Co. Ltd. were three other Shenzhen firms awarded. The other winners come from the Chinese cities of Changsha, Kunming, Wuhan and Guangzhou, and India.

Editor: Donald