China's 15 Year Science and Technology Plan

Research Technology Management, Nov/Dec 2007

China's 15 Year Science and Technology Plan; American Electronics Association (AeA), Washington, DC, 2007; 4 pp., at www.aeanet.com

This 14th installment of the AeA Competitiveness Series outlines the science and technology plan China's leaders announced in January 2006 and analyzes China's capacity to implement the plan. AeA, a trade association with 2,500 high-tech member companies, observes that the plan is designed to boost science, technology and innovation with the long-term goal of becoming a preeminent global economic and technological power. The plan calls for China to raise R&D spending from the current 1.4 percent of its economic output to 2 percent by 2010 and 2.5 percent by 2020. With China's GDP growing by over 7 percent per year, these commitments would put Chinese R&D investments above $100 billion annually, placing it in the same league as Japan and the United States, says the AeA. Noting that China's growing technology industry is largely dominated by multinational companies and built on low-value-added, labor-intensive manufacturing, "the 15 Year Plan intends to change that equation by investing heavily in such cutting-edge areas as nanotechnology and biotechnology to spawn 'indigenous innovation'."

While these goals will not be easy to accomplish, concludes the report, "the United States and other global powers should not underestimate China's ability to follow through on them and become an economic and technological equal."