Chinese State Councilor Chen Zhili has called for improvements to China's innovative capability so as to build an innovation-oriented nation that can best compete with foreign standards and technologies.

Last year was significant for China, which established a key strategy of embarking on a new path of innovation and building an innovation-oriented country, Chen said at a national conference on science and technology. 2006 also saw the implementation of the national guidelines for medium and long-term science and technology development and the 11th Five-Year Plan for science and technology, she said.

She urged quicker implementation of the national guidelines to optimize the climate for self-innovation and urged local governments and companies to continue to give priority to key scientific projects and turn scientific research into products.

Chen said universities and research institutes should closely cooperate with enterprises in order to combine research with production and markets.