The Shanghai Committee of the Communist Party of China set targets for the city's economic growth, unemployment rate and consumer price index for next year at a two-day plenary session that ended Wednesday.

The gathering called for economic growth to exceed 10 percent next year, compared with the 11.8 percent growth the city expects to report this year, and the official unemployment rate to remain just under 5 percent.

The consumer price index should hover around 102 next year. It currently sits at about 103.

The conference also passed a plan to make the city more competitive by investing more in science and technology through 2010, when Shanghai will host the World Expo.

The plan said over 40 percent of the city's GDP will be generated by new and high-tech industries in 2010.

"The city's economic development must be headed by innovation and high-caliber brains," Party Secretary Chen Liangyu told the 60 attendees of the meeting held Wednesday.

In response, the city's Science and Technology Commission said Wednesday it will increase its financial support to research and development from last year's 1.89 percent of GDP to 2.5 percent in 2007.

"We expect to push ahead a batch of state-of-the-art research projects over the next seven years," said Li Yiping, director of the commission.

(eastday.com December 18, 2003)