By Lu Haoting (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-10-08 15:24

For those of who see China as a low-tech, low-cost paradise, a couple of eye-openers: a digital camera that can watermark your photos while you take them is on sale, and a 2,000-sq-m LED screen will be put up at Beijing's Water Cube, the venue for aquatic sports at the 2008 Olympics.

Both products are regarded as the most advanced globally: the LED screen is one of the largest in the world and the camera is the world's first to combine digital watermarking and photography.

And, their developers are all private Chinese companies.

China's private enterprises are playing an increasingly important role in helping the country transform into "an innovative nation", a target set by President Hu Jintao for the next 15 years.

Among the 310,554 patents applied for by companies in China last year, 41 percent came from private firms, with State-owned enterprises contributing only 23 percent and overseas-invested companies accounting for 12 percent, according to a survey by the State Intellectual Property Office.

The private sector is not only an important engine of China's sizzling economic growth with its contribution of over 60 percent of the country's GDP, but also the backbone of the country's technological innovation.

It has provided 66 percent of the country's patents and 82 percent of new products over the past 20 years, according to figures from the Ministry of Science and Technology.

"Private enterprises have become the most vigorous players in China's innovation campaign and a driving force to build an innovative nation," Huang Mengfu, chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce, was quoted as saying earlier this year by China Business Times.

China is taking an important step, from "Made in China" to "Invented in China". It plans to become an innovative nation in the next 15 years and a global power in science and technology by the middle of the century, according to the national guideline on medium- and long-term scientific and technological development (2006-2020), which was issued by the State Council in February.

The plan is expected to increase the proportion of China's GDP spent on research and development from today's 1.3 percent to 2.5 percent by 2020.

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