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The SASAC recently issued a circular on speeding up efforts to promote the digital transformation of SOEs. The circular notes that China will intensify efforts to solve major R&D difficulties in the areas of core electronic components, high-end chips, and key software production. What are the specific plans? How will SOEs give full play to their advantages in this regard? Thank you.

Gou Ping:

Thank you for your questions. As you said and as I mentioned earlier, China is indeed weak in fields such as core electronic components, high-end chips, and key software production. The central SOEs have fully put into practice General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions on speeding up efforts to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies in key areas while acting in accordance with the decision and deployments made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. The central SOEs have focused on the key weaknesses, given full play to their advantages, and pooled great strength into further development. They have spared no efforts to expedite R&D activities and made positive progress. The SASAC has tried its best to help the central SOEs speed up efforts to make breakthroughs. In terms of strengthening guidance for assessment, increasing support for income distribution, establishing incentive mechanisms, and increasing capital support, we have strengthened policy support and provided guidance for enterprises to increase investment on R&D fronts. We have brought together factors for innovation and stimulated the drive for innovation to accelerate the pace of R&D breakthroughs. Meanwhile, we are also supporting professional mergers and acquisitions and corporate reorganization in the fields of core technologies with key links to be carried out in line with market principles. This will hopefully strengthen enterprises in the industrial and supply chain and improve the support capacity of our supply chain and the resilience of our industrial system. We also give full play to our institutional strength, which is to mobilize resources to accomplish major initiatives as well as the overall advantages of the central SOEs. We support central SOEs to take the lead and establish systemic, task-oriented innovation consortiums as well as industrial and technological innovation alliances in a bid to undertake major national sci-tech projects; promote further integration between enterprises, universities, research institutions, and consumers; and foster innovation along the industrial chain and among all sizes of enterprises. In particular, we encourage the central SOEs to harness their platform and application strengths to help all innovators in their R&D efforts and market applications and to promote the application of new technologies and products. The central SOEs already have some experience in this area and have made progress in collaborative innovation.

Next, the SASAC will focus on high-quality development and work to establish a new development paradigm. We will make sci-tech innovation a top priority and pool the resource and strength advantages of central SOEs to establish key areas for sci-tech breakthroughs, areas of development for original technologies, major hubs for sci-tech talents, and "special zones" for sci-tech innovation. We will make central SOEs a strategic strong point for national sci-tech industry and let them better play their part in speeding up efforts to make China a country of innovators in an effort to achieve self-reliance in science and technology.