“For those students who have finished study abroad and want to come back and develop high-tech industry in China, we are creating better environments for them,” said Xu Guanhua, the minister of science and technology at the press conference hosted by the State Council Information Office on April 24, Beijing.

Favorable environments as hi-tech institutes with advanced research equipment have been established in some big cites, the minister said. High-tech zones, where overseas scholars can turn their ideas into reality, have been built in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Suzhou, etc. Favorable policies for overseas scholars to develop businesses are being carried out, Xu continued, value added tax for software reduced from 17% to 6% being one example.

Efforts are being made by local governments to help their children go to school and solve other difficulties those scholars may encounter.

The government will be more attentive to scientific creation and patent issues, said Xu in response to a report made in Lausanne, Swiss, claiming a weakened China's S&T competiton in the world. “We understand that patent is playing a far more important role in the global economy”, he said.

The modernization of China’s traditional medicine is one of the country's major programs in the 10th five-year period, Xu emphasized while answering a related question. "We need to make a breakthrough in traditional Chinese medicine industry."

The minister also briefed the S&T Projects at the conference.

(www.China.org.cn by Xiao Wei 04/25/2001)