Chinese enterprises' spending on research and development (R&D) kept growing at a rate of 42 percent on average in each of the years between 2000 and 2005.

The spending stood at 53.7 billion yuan (US$6.9 billion) in 2000 and increased to 167.4 billion yuan (US$21.7 billion) five years later, sources with the Ministry of Science and Technology said on Tuesday.

The sources said that despite the big-margin growth in their R &D spending, Chinese enterprises are still weak in innovation.

In 2005, only three out of every 10,000 enterprises owned intellectual property rights in core technology and only 38.7 percent of the enterprises nationwide recorded scientific research and technological development activities. The year also witnessed as many as 98.6 percent of the enterprises remained unpatented.

However, trial operation of innovative enterprises proceeded smoothly in 2006. Among the first group of 103 pilot enterprises, 23 were approved to establish state-level laboratories and then became state-level R&D platforms.

The 103 pilot enterprises had 61 state-level new- and high-tech programs approved, with 30 enterprises of them obtaining 676 million yuan (US$87.8 million) as financial support from the central government for the purposes.

The sources revealed that in the next three to five years, the number of pilot enterprises for innovation would rise to 500.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2007)