The government should facilitate IT enterprises to build up their technological innovation mechanism so as to boost their capacity in the competitive sector, a senior IT official said  on Saturday.

Without advanced and unique technologies, it will be a great challenge for Chinese IT enterprises to survive international competition, said Lou Qinjian, vice minister of information industry, at the Boao Forum for Asia annual meeting.

Noting that China's IT industry has been running on a fast track over the past years, Lou said that the sector still lags behind the world level, particularly in terms of innovation capacity.

Many Chinese IT firms, like the on-line searching engine giant Baidu.com and leading computer manufacturer Lenovo, mainly rely on their own sources of investment instead of due government financial aid, the vice minister said.

"It's not a question of the amount. The government investment should produce a guiding effect that encourages enterprises to focus on technological innovation and development," said Lou, while exchanging views with business celebrities attending a breakfast party of the annual meeting.

Dominated by a planned economy before China adopted the reform and opening-up strategy in 1978, technological research was separated from the market, and many enterprises always followed the steps of their foreign peers.

"But now we are pursuing the concept of market-oriented innovation to make production and research mutually supportive," Lou said.

Chinese companies "are forced" to catch up with the innovative trend to gain a share in the fast changing market, according to Robbin Li, chief executive officer with Baidu.com.

"The government's role does not lie in creating an innovative environment by itself, but in guiding and aiding us to build such a circumstance," Li said, adding that the innovative mechanism will be gradually formed when new challenges keep coming up in the development process.

(Xinhua News Agency April 22, 2006)