It is hoped that industrial value-added tax from the two sectors will account for 3.28 percent of the city's GDP by 2005, according to municipal officials at a Thursday briefing on the development of these two sectors.

Aware of its strength in research and available markets, Beijing aims to make the bioengineering and pharmaceutical industries pillars of its economy.

Speaking at the briefing, Xu Heyi, deputy director of the municipal economic and trade commission, invited foreign investors to help with these plans.

At the end of 2000, Beijing had 265 pharmaceutical producers, 103 producers of Chinese traditional medicine and 1,034 medical apparatus producers and dealers.

(People's Daily March 3, 2002)