A national forum on long-term scientific and technological development, held last week in Beijing, marked the launch of China's strategy on the issue for the next 15 years.

Premier Wen Jiabao, who heads the co-ordination panel drawing up the strategy, has been personally involved in the programme. State Councillor Chen Zhili and Minister of Science and Technology Xu Guanhua are also on the panel.

The involvement of top leaders in itself testifies to the great importance the country attaches to the development of science and technology.

China has initiated seven such strategic plans at different stages over the past decades. They have supported the country's fast and steady economic development.

In an era of high technology, however, fast economic growth cannot be sustained without technological breakthroughs.

The new situation calls for a more up-to-date and forward-looking national strategy. This concerns the country's competitiveness over the coming decades.

The new plan will aim to promote scientific and technological innovation and answer that call.

For a long time, Chinese firms and research institutions paid more attention to the application of mature technologies that can bring instant economic returns, rather than innovative and original technologies. Basic research was put to one side.

Companies and institutions have garnered enormous profits from those practical technologies. The prosperity of industries such as cars and household electrical appliances is a case in point.

But we may lose more than what we have gained.

In the field of basic research, we can match the advanced world level in only 15 disciplines. Regarding applied technology, the number of our patented inventions is 30 times less than the number held by the United States. Ninety per cent of information-technology inventions and 87 per cent of biotechnology inventions have been achieved by foreign enterprises and individuals.

A still more vivid example than those bare figures is the fact that the vast majority of the various computer chips in the Chinese market have foreign patents.

A lack of core technologies will become a bottleneck to China's future competitiveness in the international market.

It is in this sense that we are in dire need of a sound scientific and technological strategy to shift our focus to the right track.