Chinese Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu Stresses Innovation in Agriculture
Text of report by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)
[Unattributed report: "Speaking at the 50th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hui Liangyu Stresses the Importance of Making More Efforts To Build the System for Agricultural Sci-Tech Innovation and Promoting the Sound and Fast Economic and Social Development in the Rural Areas"]
Beijing, 10 Nov (Xinhua) – A celebration meeting marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences was solemnly held in Beijing on 10 November.
Hui Liangyu, member of the CCP Central Committee Political Bureau and vice premier of the State Council, attended the meeting to express his congratulations to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and to extend his greetings to agricultural sci-tech workers across the country. He said: Scientific and technological progress is the fundamental way out for agricultural development. It holds the key to the prosperity in the rural areas. It is an effective measure to enable farmers to become rich. We should extensively study and carry out the spirit of the 17th Party Congress. We should take a path of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics, conscientiously accelerate the construction of the system for agricultural sci-tech innovation, strive to enhance the level of the transformation and application of agricultural sci-tech achievements, and work hard to transform the mode of agricultural development so as to provide effective support for the development of agricultural modernization and the drive to build a new socialist countryside.
Uyunqimg, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and Li Zhaochao, vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, attended the meeting.
During his speech, Hui Liangyu said: Over the past 50 years, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has conscientiously carried out the arrangements made by the CCP Central Committee regarding the work related to the “three rural issues” [san nong: agriculture, peasants, rural areas] and the principle regarding the sci-tech work. It has trained and cultivated a large group of distinguished agricultural scientists. It has achieved a large batch of original sci-tech results which take the lead at home and abroad. It has made important contributions to improving overall agricultural production capacity, ensuring grain security and food supply for the nation, and making a historic leap in ensuring the Chinese people to lead a fairly comfortable life on the whole.
Hui Liangyu urged that in the face of agricultural modernization, the efforts to build a new countryside, and international agricultural competition, we should speed up the pace of promoting China’s agricultural sci-tech undertakings. We should strive to strengthen independent agricultural sci-tech innovation and work hard to build up the overall strength of our agricultural science and technology to make it one of the strongest in the world. We should spare no effort to strengthen the building of the ranks of agricultural sci-tech personnel and discover talented personnel, nurture them, and rally them during the course of innovation. We should promote the transformation and application of agricultural sci-tech achievements, improve sci-tech popularization system, and strengthen the sci-tech training of the peasants so as to transform more agricultural sci-tech achievements into practical productive forces. We should strive to launch international cooperation and exchanges of agricultural science and technology and actively participate in the process of the world’s agricultural sci-tech revolution.
Hui Liangyu expressed his hopes that in the new historical period, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences will play its role as a pacesetter in the process of promoting China’s agricultural sci-tech progress and become the principal force propelling major agricultural sci-tech research and development projects. He said: The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences should grasp the rare opportunity, accelerate the pace of development, strive to achieve more first-class sci-tech results, cultivate more first-class innovative personnel, and create more first-class work achievements. It should turn itself into a world- class agricultural research institute and enable China’s agricultural sci-tech undertakings to develop by leaps and bounds.
The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences was founded in 1957. After 50 years of development, it has become the state’s agricultural sci-tech innovation base with an international reputation. In addition to that, it has become one of the important bases for training high-level agricultural sci-tech personnel in China.
Prior to the meeting, Hui Liangyu and other officials met with the representatives of the academicians of the China Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering specializing in the agricultural sci-tech domain. They also visited a national exhibition of agricultural sci-tech achievements.
Originally published by Xinhua news agency domestic service, Beijing, in Chinese 1238 10 Nov 07.
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