China

3.

SCIENCE AND INNOVATION: COUNTRY NOTES

CHINA
China’s R&D intensity reached 1.42% of
GDP in 2006, thanks to a rapid, decade-long
increase in R&D expenditure. The government intends to haveR&D intensity reach 2%
by 2010. Owing to the market-oriented
reforms of the R&D system since 1985, industry’s share of GERD rose to 69% in 2006, a
similar level to that in Finland, Germany andSweden.
China has the world’s second largest
stock of human resources for science and
technology (HRST), just after the United
States and ahead of Japan. Its share of
university graduates withdegrees in science
and engineering is 39.2%, almost twice that
of the OECD average. On the other hand, the
overall level of tertiary attainment is still
quite low, even by developing countrystandards, and the number of researchers
per 1 000 total employment is very low, at
about one-tenth of the level of Finland, the
world leader.
Production of triadic patent families
and scientific articlesis still very low on a
per capita basis. Foreign inventors own a
large share of invention patents granted in
China, and foreign-owned firms account
for an increasing share of high-technologyexports. In absolute numbers, however,
China entered the top 15 for triadic patent
families in 2005. It also accounted for 5.9%
of the world’s s cientific articles, up
from 1.6% in 1995, in fifthplace behind the
United States, Japan, Germany and the
United Kingdom.
Only a small share of gross domestic
expenditure on R&D is funded from abroad.
However, motivated by the availability ofquality HRST and a large domestic market,

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inflows of foreign R&D investment have
increased strongly in the past years, and
funding from foreign firms based in China
and abroad is estimated toaccount for 25%
of business enterprise R&D. This is set to
continue, as multinational firms consider
China a prime destination for future R&D
investment. While foreign ownership of
Chinese...