During the current harvest season, Australian agriculturalist Robert Clements reaped gold in China -- the state-level Friendship Award, the highest honor conferred on foreigners by the central government.

Along with 49 experts, selected from more than 200,000 foreigners working in China, Clements proudly received the medal yesterday in Beijing.

The 50 winners, from 21 countries, are engaged in various fields such as agriculture, energy resources, the electronics industry, finance, education, scientific research, medicine, journalism and publishing.

A total of 850 foreign experts have been bestowed the award since it was established in 1991.

"I'm very glad and honored to win the award," said 64-year-old Clements who has worked in China for 10 years. "This is an important indication that the Chinese government recognizes what I have done for the country."

Clements told China Daily that his job in China is mainly to "facilitate, coordinate and put together" research projects such as crop growing, grassland improvement, tree planting and addressing soil erosion in collaboration with Chinese and Australian research institutions.

"We share brains, share information, and share benefits," he said.

Having visited a large number of rural sites around China, Clements said that to raise farmers' incomes, a pressing issue for the country, the government needs to introduce innovations, such as new crop varieties and new breeding technologies.

"But before applying innovations, especially imported, we need research and tests as natural conditions are quite different from place to place.

"That is what I am doing in China. I am very proud to have the opportunity to help and take part in the agricultural development of China," Clements said.

Michel Humbert, another of this year's winners, is dubbed the "Contemporary Comrade Bethune" in the economic field.

Norman Bethune, a Canadian humanitarian who provided medical care to China during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945) in the 1930s, is one of the most respected foreigners in China.

Like Bethune, the 70-year-old Humbert, a French businessman who has been in China for nearly 20 years, has devoted himself to promoting China's economic development, asking for little in return.

He is now a senior adviser to the government in Yantai, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province, where he encourages foreign companies to invest and do business.

With Humbert's help, more than 800 foreign companies have set up branches or businesses in Yantai over the past five years. "I am proud that many investors are so pleased with the quality of their investments that they have dramatically enlarged their facilities and plants in Yantai. I will spend the next 20 years here," Humbert said.

He was awarded honorary citizenship of Yantai and the Friendship Medal of Shandong in 2002.

(China Daily September 30, 2005)