More than 750 foreign-funded research and development centers are operating in China, which are mainly distributed in the places of foreign investment concentration, including Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing, according to the incomplete statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce, reports People's Daily on Thursday.

Large transnational corporations have established their research and development centers in China in line with their global business strategies. They include Microsoft, IBM, Motorola, Siemens, Nortel Networks, Dupont, General Electric, General Motors, Volkswagen, P&G, Honda and Hitachi.

Judging from industrial distribution, the research and development centers are focused on technology-intensive business sectors, such as the manufacturing industries of electronics, communication equipment, transport and communication facilities, medicines, and chemical raw materials and products.

According to an analysis by an official with the Ministry of Commerce, the research and developments centers feature the following:

- Importance is on the rise. The research and development centers are classified into three categories in China: The first is the basic development type. They engage in basic research with research results targeting the global market. Generally speaking, they are global research and development centers. The second is the type of application development, mainly engaged in the development of application products targeting China market. They are, generally, regional research and development centers. The third is technical support type. They are mainly engaged in technical services in support of their parent companies' major business operations, such as testing services and maintenance of products.

- Scope is gradual expanding. With the rise of the centers' status in the country, transnational corporations are continuously expanding their research and development investment, forming some independent centers with larger scales. Their investment in research and development has exceeded more than US$10 million. For example, they include the Shanghai research and development centers set up by General Electric and Philips, and the Beijing R&D centers by Motorola and Siemens.

- Research and development personnel is being localized obviously. Transnational corporations generally pay attention to the promotion of the localization of research and development staffers. Most of the localized research and development talents are graduates from local universities and colleges, or returned Chinese studying overseas, which account for more than 90 percent of their researchers for some of the centers. The centers have brought into full play the buildup effect of talents, improving the growth of technical talents and the level of research and development in the country.

- Technical spillover effect appears evidently. Transnational corporations, such as General Electric, Alcatel Shanghai Bell and Motorola, are engaged in close exchanges and cooperation with domestic universities and research institutions via their research and development enters in China, which is one of the important features for the research and development centers based in China.

From proper right attribution, most cooperative research and development achievements are property rights shared jointly by both sides, which makes the technical spillover effect of the foreign-funded centers more obvious. This is beneficial to boosting China's scientific and technical levels, the improvement of digestion, absorption and innovation capability, and the enlargement of proprietary intellectual property rights. In the meantime, it is favorable to the industrialization of research and development achievements.

(People's Daily February 10, 2006)