Chinese President Hu Jintao made clear Monday that the major tasks of the ongoing Fourth National Conference on Science and Technology.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Hu Jintao said: "The main tasks for this conference is to analyze the situation, reach common understanding, summarize experiences, make clear the development tasks and deploy the implementation of the country's middle-and-long-term program for science and technology development from 2006 to 2020."

The conference, which is also the country's first of such type in the 21st century, will also serve to mobilize the whole country and the Communist Party of China (CPC) to go unswervingly along the path of innovation with Chinese characteristics, work to form an innovative country and break new ground for the building of a well-off society in China and accelerate the socialist modernization process.

Hu, on behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, also paid tribute to science and technology workers' outstanding contributions to the development of China's science and technology undertakings.

"We must hold fast the opportunities and face up to various challenges to push forward the country's socialist cause with Chinese characteristics," Hu said.

According to Hu, China will implement the strategy of rejuvenating China with science, education and human sources and give further play the science and technology development and innovation so as to shift the country's social and economic development into the path of coordinately sustainable development with people first.

"We must really and truly put the science and technology at the strategic position of priority development to echo the increasingly tense competition on the world arena," said Hu.

Only in this way can China grasp opportunities of vital importance and therefore win initiative in its development, he said.