Chinese businessmen urged to sustain growth
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Xinhua, September 16, 2011
Sustaining growth is one of the major concerns of business elites currently gathered in northeast China's city of Dalian for the World Economic Forum's Summer Davos meeting.
Businessmen agreed "take innovations to the market" during the forum, which will end on Friday. The appeal for innovation in the business and technology sectors comes at a time of uncertainty, with the European sovereign debt crisis unnerving global markets.
"Innovation can happen everywhere: technological innovations, business innovations, financial innovations," Dr. Jeong Kim, president of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs and head of Alcatel-Lucent Corporate Strategy, said during an interview on the sidelines of the meeting.
Kim said he was "a bit surprised" to hear the term "disruptive innovation" being tossed around in China this year. The term describes a phenomenon in which a new product or technology creates a new market and value network, eventually going on to disrupt an existing market and displace previous products.
Kim said he believes that China has mastered "realistic innovation" and that it will be interesting to see how China does in creating "disruptive innovation."
China plans to increase the amount it spends on scientific research and development, raising the amount from 1.75 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) to 2.2 percent during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015).
Analysts say innovation is still a scarcity in many parts of China, where the economy remains largely investment-driven.
"There is no way for China to continue using the development pattern that it has felt comfortable using over the past three decades," Li Daokui, a monetary adviser for China's central bank, said at the forum.
China and other developing countries are also feeling pressure to innovate from another source - external uncertainties regarding the economies of the U.S. and the European Union, according to Kim. "Crises of any type force you to think harder," he said.
Kim believes that the key to spurring innovation in China is to spend more time investing and researching in scientific sectors. "If you don't have broad-based research, then you don't have any options other than following or copying from someone else," he said.
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