High-quality development must rely on innovation: Chinese expert

(ECNS) – China's high-quality development must rely on innovation, said an expert at a conference themed on high-quality development and Chinese modernization, in Beijing on Wednesday.

Innovation should become an important driving force for comprehensive and high-quality development, said Bi Jingquan, a member of the standing committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and deputy director of the Economic Committee under the CPPCC.

He explained that high-quality development should foster a fully modernized country and play a leading role in constructing a new development path.

Bi, also executive vice-chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, held that encouraging innovation requires strengthening basic research and encouraging exploration. As an example, he introduced the experience of a company in personnel recruitment, scientific research management, evaluation methods for scientific and technological achievements, and mechanisms for transformation.

Besides, he pointed out that encouraging innovation needs incentive mechanisms to stimulate the innovative vitality of researchers. It should further involve the removal of institutional barriers and the creation of a better ecosystem.

Since 2015, China has made thorough reforms in drug evaluation and approval, cracking down on clinical trial data fraud, raising drug evaluation standards, and simplifying the approval process for new drugs. Thanks to these reforms, China's biopharmaceutical industry has undergone tremendous changes in just a few years, he noted.

Bi also stressed the need to strengthen intellectual property protection and crack down on infringement, counterfeiting and illegal activities. 

He suggested that the top priority is to revise the provisions in the criminal law to combat intellectual property rights infringement.