Top Chinese leaders, including President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Hu Jintao, attended the academician conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) on Monday.

Other members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of CPC Central Committee who were present at the opening ceremony of the science summit are Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin, Zeng Qinghong, Huang Ju, Wu Guanzheng, Li Changchun and Luo Gan.

At the four-day conference, the CAS is to revise its constitution, elect new leadership for its academic divisions, and elect the seventh batch of its foreign associates. The CAE will elect a new leadership for its presidium. A total of 20 senior engineers will be awarded the Sixth Guanghua Engineering Science and Technology Prize at the conference.

Academic workshops will also be held during the conference.

Under the CAS and CAE constitutions, the two academies must organize conferences of Academicians once every two years. The CAS has 704 academicians and foreign associates while the CAE has 701 academicians and foreign associates.

(Xinhua News Agency June 5, 2006)