China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have very low independent innovation capacity, with only a small number of them possessing core competence, a government official said here Thursday.

The concept of independent innovation at SOEs is still feeble, with the system of motivation needing improvement, said Ji Xiaonan, chairman of the Council of Large Enterprises of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), at the International Forum on Productivity Development in China.

"There is a great gap between Chinese SOEs' input in research and technology and enterprises in developed countries," he said.

According to him, China's large SOEs spent 5.67 billion yuan (US$700 million) in introducing technology, but only spent360 million yuan in absorbing technology in 2003.

The general technical level of SOEs is relatively low and the efficiency of technological innovation needs to be enhanced, he said.

Ji called for efforts to strengthen SOEs' important status in research and raise their consciousness and motivation of independent innovation, saying the government should create some index, such as the proportion of research funding to sales revenueand the quantity of patents every year, into SOE leaders' appraisal system to drive independent innovation.

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2005)