Innovation Fund to Aid 1,000-odd High-tech VenturesThe Technology Innovation Fund for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is to provide financial support to over 1,000 high-tech ventures this year, a senior official said in Beijing Monday.Xu Guanhua, Vice Minister of Science and Technology said at a press conference on Monday that the fund will focus on projects of software development, biological pharmaceuticals, new materials, resources and environment, new energy and high-efficient energy saving and other kinds of high-tech projects. He said that the Fund will give top priority to software development projects as well as bio-pharmaceutical projects. The fund was granted by the State Council last June with a primary allocation of one billion yuan (120 million US dollars). It will support projects with intellectual property rights, advanced technology, good market prospective after China's entry of WTO, and upgrading of state-owned enterprises with high technology. He said the fund will also support newly-established ventures run by returned overseas Chinese students. The Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance have in the past year approved 1,281 projects of technology-based SMEs. There had been over 70,000 technology-based SMEs registered in China by the end of 1998, with a total turnover of 600 billion yuan (72 billion dollars) and over 3.3 million employees. |
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