Last year a record 300 billion yuan are invested. This represents 1.4 per cent of the GDP. Research excels in space and weapons technology but also medicine (AIDS, stem cell) and energy. Research quality improves in many fields and equals that of Europe and Japan.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Mainland investment in research and development (R&D) rose by 22 per cent last year to a record 300 billion yuan (about US$ 38.6 billion). In areas like nanotechnology, it is in a leading position.

Science and Technology Minister Xu Guanhua told a national conference in Beijing yesterday that R&D spending accounted for 1.4 per cent of the nation's gross domestic product last year.

Unveiling spending and policy plans for this year, Mr Xu said scientific research would start to focus on the marine environment and renewable energy.

Proposals for research on large aircraft, HIV/Aids treatment, next-generation broadband wireless communication and lunar exploration would be completed this year.

Mr Xu said the mainland would also start establishing more than 30 laboratories in universities and research institutions to boost multidisciplinary research in fields such as nanotechnology and stem cells.

And as part of the country's drive for more modern agricultural practices, the government would set up more than 100 villages and 60 towns as national models of scientific and technological development.

According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, China had the world's biggest pool of trained science and technology personnel in 2005—35 million in all—and had 1.36 million people engaged in R&D, second only to the US.

In 2005 80 per cent of researchers were below the age of 45.

The nation now has 253 hi-tech development zones, with total R&D investment of 80 billion yuan, contributing 9 per cent of the country's industrial added value.

The nation has also witnessed a rapid improvement in research quality. The number of mainland papers accepted by the international Science Citation Index—a database of leading scientific journals—is on a par with Britain, Germany and Japan, and the number of mainland publications about nanotechnology ranks among the world's highest.

• china
• scientific
• research
• spending
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• r&d