The Chinese government is raising the budget for scientific and technological research by 20 percent this year, said a senior official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Thursday.

Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice Minister with the National Development and Reform Commission, made the remarks at a forum of China's Eighth International Trade Fair for High-Tech Achievements held in Shenzhen City of south China's Guangdong Province.

The central government has increased its financial support for scientific research especially in basic disciplines, said Zhang.

According to NDRC statistics, China's spending on basic research has risen from 5.22 billion yuan (US$652.5 million) in 2001 to 13.12 billion yuan in 2005.

To ensure its goals of scientific and technological research are reached, China will continue to increase spending on scientific and technological research from 2006 to 2010, he said.

More efforts will be made to encourage enterprises to increase their spending on technological innovation and to become the main body of technological innovation, Zhang added.

Data of the NDRC shows that enterprises contributed 60.44 percent of total spending to technology research in 2001 with the percentage rising to 68.32 percent in 2005.

Yet the input of Chinese enterprises in scientific research only makes up 0.8 percent of their sales income, much lower than the average level of three percent in the developed countries.

(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2006)