A SENIOR Chinese official said yesterday that increased overseas investment is being encouraged to help develop the country's high-tech industries.

"China welcomes more international high-tech companies to set up regional headquarters, research and development centers, procurement centers and training centers in China, and encourages domestic enterprises to explore overseas high-tech markets," Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, told a press conference in Beijing.

Zhang said China's high-tech industries have increased the use of foreign investment over the past two decades and that multinational companies had set up more than 1,000 research institutions across the country.

Major industries include biomedicines, aviation and aerospace, micro-electronics, photoelectrons and software. China now produces more computers, mobile phones, antibiotics and vaccines than any other country.

Total revenue for the high-tech sector last year exceeded 5.3 trillion yuan (US$706 billion). High-tech exports reached US$281.5 billion in 2006, more than four times the figure for 2002 and accounting for almost a third of China's total export volume.

Zhang predicted high-tech revenue would exceed 6.3 trillion yuan this year and exports grow to US$350 billion.

"The telecommunications sector has attracted 100 million new subscribers every year in the past six years, and the number of phone users nationwide had hit 880 million by the end of August," Zhang said.

China plans to focus on nine major special projects in the next few years, including integrated circuits, software, new-generation mobile communications, next-generation Internet, digital voice and video technologies, advanced computing, biological medicines, commercial aircraft, satellites and new materials.

The NDRC will allocate about six billion yuan to develop key scientific infrastructure, Zhang said.

It will also spend 4.8 billion yuan to support a new phase of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' innovation projects and two billion yuan to promote independent innovation.

The commission will support the construction of 11 national laboratories, 50 work centers and 300 corporate technology centers, Zhang said.

Corporate investment will stimulate the development of high-tech industries, and as a return, the products generated will benefit the companies, Zhang said.

Xinhua/Shanghai Daily