China has an enormous pool of scientific and technological talent, 4-and-a-half million people, the most in the world.

Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gan announced the figure, noting 70 percent of them are concentrated in high-tech enterprises and key large-scale companies.

China's semiconductor lighting sector took a big hit last year, in great part due to lack of core technology. The orders of some companies fell to less than 10 percent of the original.

A research center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences decided to offer its support. This enabled a Shanghai semiconductor lighting company to double its profits and improve its products' capability by 30 percent.

Li Jinmin, Dorector of Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, said, "So far, we have signed cooperation agreements with dozens of companies that specialize in chip manufacturing and encapsulation."

Wan Gang, Minister of Science and Technology, said, "We team up over 200 key laboratories and nearly 300 national engineering research centers with the research centers of enterprises, and open them to the public, especially to small and medium-sized enterprises."

This small company in Ningbo in Zhejiang province, relied on own innovations to win a second-class National Science and Technology Improvement Award at the beginning of the year.

The company holds more than 300 patented technologies and invests 5 percent of its sales volume into research and development every year.

(CCTV March 18, 2009)