Remarkable Progress for “University-Enterprise
Marriage” Project
Officials of Chinese State Economic and Trade Commission, Ministry of Education and Chinese Academy of Sciences presented the results of their joint development projects respectively at a news briefing held on August 18, 1999, for the event of 99’ National Business Talks and Exhibitions on the so-called university-enterprise marriage. These cases have reflected the fact that a great number of higher learning institutions had jointed their hands with enterprises in promoting the industrialization of research results and thus achieved huge economic and social benefits.
In 1992, Chinese State Economic and Trade Commission, Ministry of Education and Chinese Academy of Sciences launched the nation wide project on university-enterprise coalition. Up to date, there have been 43 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities and Xinjiang production & construction corps and some governmental agencies who have created their own coordination mechanism for university-enterprise coalition project. In the last seven years of the implementation, the project provided momentum for upgrading traditional industries with high tech, accelerating industrialization of new technologies, readjustment of economic structures, nurturing new economic growth points, establishing cooperative modes in line with principles of the market-oriented economy, encouraging the establishment of technical innovation system with enterprises as the main body headed by enterprises and promoting the full fledged cooperation between universities and enterprises. In addition, it has achieved remarkable results in creating university-enterprise coalition mechanism and efficient working mode, accelerating spin-off of research results, enhancing independent innovation capability of enterprises, improving research and education level and promoting restructuring of economic, educational and S&T systems. Each year the country sees nearly 100,000 enterprises and over 8,000 universities and research institutions be matched in the coalition with 170,000 research results transferred.
Ten High Tech Projects
Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone celebrated its 5th anniversary on August 26, 1999, by recommending ten high tech projects to overseas investors and publishing ten policies supporting the development of high tech industry.
The said ten projects are: Green refrigerant with an investment of RMB 500 million; new lithium battery of RMB 408 million; west China modern agriculture of RMB 270 million; biological filter pond of RMB 21.8 million; multifunctional health care project of RMB 39 million, liquidized oxygen storage of RMB 10 million; degradable earth film and package of RMB 15 million, mercury nitride illumination tube of RMB 16 million, new liver medicine of RMB 45 million and Korean Neodyne motor. The recommendation of these projects has again demonstrated firm determination and strong strength of Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone in promoting the development of high tech industry.
To match the recommendations, Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone (BETDZ) published ten industrial policies supporting high tech development today. The most attractive one is that BETDZ will provide preferential treatment to investors in the context of land lease, grace period for land lease fee payment, discount lease and property sales, which will help investors to solve their problems of fund shortage at starting stage. BETDZ will also help senior management of the enterprises stationed in the zone and their spouse and children to obtain Beijing citizenship.
It is also reported that approved by authorities concerned, China APEC S&T Service Center was established in BETDZ. The new center is an important component of service system in the zone. With the support of APEC Joint Meeting of Chinese Enterprises, it will provide APEC enterprises and small and medium domestic enterprises with S&T innovation bases of fine environment, open channels and balanced benefits, appropriate conditions for the survival and growth of S&T enterprises and help to invest and circulare funds for industrialization of high tech results
Sustained Growth of High Tech Export
Along with the growth of high tech enterprises in the country, high tech products export has also witnessed fast growth. The export of high tech products keprt increasing from January to July this year.
As shown by the statistics published by Chinese Customs, high tech products export in the areas such as machinery and electronics, audio and video, aircraft and optical and medical instrument, has shown strong market call, of which the export of automatic data processing equipment and its parts reached USD 3.98 billion, 5.9% up than that in the same period of last year, mobile telephone sets and wireless telephone in the automobile of USD 30 million, 67.5% more than last year and integrated circuits and micro electronic components of USD 1.01 billion, 79.1 % up than last year.
The uprising of high tech products export is the mirror of the fast growth of relevant industries in the country. Up to date, Chinese industrial sectors such as electronics & telecommunication, chemistry, medicine, computer software, aviation and space are of the technical strength and production capacity marching into the international market. In 1998, China’s high tech export reached USD 11.28 billion, 18.1% higher than that in the same period of last year. The said growth has attracted special attention for it was realized under an extremely difficult external environment with the growth of Chinese general export in the year only reaching 0.5%. This has demonstrated the impacts by Chinese policy of “revitalizing the country with science and education” and effects of its restructuring products composition.
Import & Export Bank’s New Initiatives
China Import & Export Bank (CIEB) has recently made the decision to provide priority loans to the export of high tech products in the field of bioengineering, advanced materials and others. This will play a positive role in increasing China’s export of high tech products.
It is briefed that according to increasing fund raising demand for fast export growth, CIEB has worked out nine new initiatives to support the export of machinery and electronics products and set equipment with policy oriented financial means. These initiatives are as follows:
Further enhance the support to export loans for major industrial sectors, regions, enterprises and projects, especially the export of high tech products in the field of machinery and electronics and set equipment. Meanwhile, it will enhance its loan support to small and medium enterprises and projects of similar scales. It will provide close-ended loans to large and medium state enterprises who have secured orders and are in a position to serve their debts though running deficits at present for the time being.
Strengthen the support to knock-down ensembling projects, explore and pave the way for providing loans for the establishment of enterprises overseas, overseas project contracts, investment in overseas machinery and electronic products with priorities on knock-down projects in the sectors of strong equipment and technology strength such as light industry, textile industry, household electronic appliances and garment. It will also provide strong support to the export of knock-down products by taking advantage of Chinese enterprises’ existing equipment and proven technology.
It will expand its buyer’s credit service and gradually offer its export credit insurance and external guarantee services. It will also explore different ways of fund raising such as comprehensive export credit loan, export credit insurance, external guarantee, external discount loans and foreign trade development fund. It will pay special attention to fund raising problems encountered by enterprises in exporting capital goods such as set equipment involving large amount of funds and long duration so as to enhance Chinese enterprises’ competitiveness in international market.
Under the preconditions of serious analysis and strict screening, CICB will provide some partial unguaranteed loans to large enterprises or enterprises groups who are of strong strength, fine economic benefits and trust worthiness so as to ease their difficulty in finding guarantees. Be strictly in line with the request of preventing and dissolving financial risks and improving and strengthening banking services, the management of short and medium term quota loans will be further improved according to the operational status, export and financial conditions of clients. The more practical management of short and medium term quota loans, which is different from the project loans, shall be further implemented.
The new initiatives also include expanding the benefited area of export credit, supporting machinery and electronic products export in the form of knock-down ensembling, especially that of high technology content; providing quality service for loan distribution and management of foreign governmental loans according to the positive financial and industrial policies of the state, enhancing the support to key national construction projects in the fields of transportation, environmental protection, agriculture, forestry, water resources and etc, promoting economic restructuring in the middle and west regions and supporting the construction of national economy.
Major Breakthroughs for China’s
Cryogenic Superconductivity Studies
Zijinshan Observatory of Chinese Academy of Sciences has recently successfully developed SIS receivers installed on its 13.7 mm radio telescope. The said development is the first of practical application of cryogenic superconductivity in China.
Experts believe that it is a major breakthrough in China’s application of superconductive electronics, which has not only realized a new leap of China’s radio telescope observations at millimeter and sub millimeter wave but also laid a solid foundation for the extensive application of superconductive noise detecting technology in national economy and defense.
At present, millimeter or submillimeter radio telescopes in most other countries have been equipped with SIS receivers. Developed countries such US, Japan and France are applying this technology in air based projects.
The development of SIS receiver for 13.7 mm radio telescope is a key project undertaken by Chinese Academy of Sciences. As shown by the verification result of CAS, applied with wide band simple feedback paralleling dual Gemini array and new techniques for easy extension to submillimeter band such as wide band non-tuning circuit, its major performances have reached the advanced level of similar instruments in the world in the mid or later 1990s.
Substantive Progress for Shanghai
Synchronized Radiation Unit
Recently Shanghai synchronized radiation unit, the largest scientific project at the end of this century and early next century in China, has enjoyed substantive progress at its prestudy phase.
The said unit is composed of four sub-projects including injector, storage ring, synchronized radiation testing device, auxiliary construction and public facilities.
This is the first large scientific project established by the state and jointly financed by central and local government with a total investment of RMB 1 billion. The project is planned to be completed and put into operation in 2004.
As disclosed by authorities concerned, the pre-study phase has realized the scheduled design, defined the first group of optical beam stations to be built and assessed the design. The major tasks of pre-study phase are preliminary design and expanded design of the project, mastering the key technologies and developing the prototype of major parts. Other parts of the project are in positive progress.
High-Yield Rice in Desert
Chinese scientists have recently developed a new technique preventing the run-off of water and nutrition with the plastic film for covering young plants, which lead to the successful production of high-yield rice in the vast desert of China’s northwest region.
The socalled desert film linen technique may save 60% to 80% of water in growing rice. As a result, the yield produced by the said means is about 2000 kilos per hectare higher than that by conventional means. Scientists have successfully changed 4000 hectares of quicksand covered wild land at the edge of Badanjilin Desert, the third largest desert in China, into fine arable land producing 15 tons of rice per hectare.
As briefed by experts, desert areas usually enjoy unique sunshine resource with large temperature difference between day and night which is especially good for cumulation of sugar in plant. The rice grown with the said technique is fine in taste and of 10% to 20% higher protein and sugar content than the one grown in non-desert areas. Furthermore, rice grown in desert areas is the green food in real sense for there is little diseases over the desert and pesticide is seldom used.
Being a part of desertification control technique development, a key national S&T project, desert film linen technique is regarded as “China’s innovation in controlling and utilizing desert” by experts both at home and abroad. UNDP has listed it an important effort for desertification prevention in the world.
China’s First ECR Ion Gun
China has successfully developed its first 14.5 GHz ECR ion gun, which marked China’s internationally advanced position in ion gun research field.
As briefed by Lanzhou Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the said ion gun is a component of the heavy ion circular accelerator. Ion gun is the origin of the accelerator producing different ion beams to be accelerated and is of extensive applications in scientific research and high tech field.
Not long ago, the said ion gun has been tested and approved by the state authorities concerned. Experts believe that the youth research group of Lanzhou Institute of Modern Physics have for the first time in ion gun designing applied relatively high axial magnetic field and class 6 permanent magnetic field and successfully applied large volume arc chest and dual frequency microwave feedback mode on the same ion gun. These innovative designing is very helpful for producing highly charged ion beams and metal ions.
So far the ion gun has successfully screened out 17 ion beams including 5 metal ions, which were used in the first metal ion beam experiment by China’s first heavy ion accelerator.
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