China Announces Science Advancement Award Winners ����A technique which has maintained high levels of crude oil output in the Daqing Oilfield, China's largest, for the last 12 years has been listed amongst winning projects in the 1998 National Science and Technology Advancement Awards, which were released in Beijng on January 7. ����Lin Quan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Science and Technology, revealed that a total of 471 projects have won awards. ����He said the awards were focused on projects with intellectual property rights, high-technology, special techniques for solving major problems which hold back the development of the national economy and projects to boost sustainable development. ����For the first time the awards considered projects involving new discoveries and inventions and there were 72 prizes allocated in the 1998 National Invention Award section. ����However, the class-one prize was not awarded and Lin urged scientists and technicians to work on more inventions which might have great social and economic benefits for China, instead of always imitating their foreign colleagues. ����The spokesman also announced that J.L. Lions from France and Sabourin Jean from Canada jointly won the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award for 1998. ���� HomeNews 1999-01-08 Page4 Full Story in Chinese