At the Independent Innovation and Transnational R&D Center Summit held in Beijing last Saturday, Wang Zhile, director of the Transnational Company Research Center of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, stressed that transnational companies' research and development center was an integral part of China's innovation system.

He said that as transnational companies increased their investment in China, they began to move their research and development (R&D) centers to China. R&D center has become an important policy choice for China to introduce foreign investment. Chinese government has always worked actively to promote transnational companies to build their R&D center in China.

By independent innovation, Wang said it doesn't mean that China should do everything by itself. In fact, China can achieve independent innovation in an open way. This means that based on self-development, China can set up joint venture companies with foreign enterprises. In the process of making innovations, Chinese enterprises can invite foreign companies to set up R&D centers in China, they can also go out to buy foreign R&D resources abroad. To check the success of independent innovation, the key point is to see whether Chinese companies and transnational companies have the initiative to keep sustainable development, and whether innovations are made by absorbing foreign technologies.

When talking about how to integrate foreign companies' R&D center into the state's innovation system, Wang said that by relying on market in its basic function of allocating resources, and by using economic and legal means we should set up a market competitive scheme where foreign enterprises, state-owned enterprises and private enterprises could compete against one another and cooperate with one another.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization, the number of foreign R&D centers has increased substantially in China. From June 2003, to June 2004, some 200 foreign R&D centers had been set up in China. By the end of 2004, the number of foreign R&D centers in China had reached 750. Many R&D centers have made great scientific achievements in China.
 
Editor: Yan