Mr. Chairman, Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me begin by thanking the co-chairs for their contribution to the success of the second annual Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development held last May.

STI constitutes a driving force for the progress of human society. China believes that all countries need to seize the opportunity offered by the fourth industrial revolution, implement strategies for innovation-driven development and deepen international cooperation in STI with a view to promoting sustainable development. The developed countries need to transfer technologies to the developing countries, share knowledge with them and provide them with training in science, technology and innovation so as to help them enhance their own capacity for innovation and attain the SDGs.

The Chinese government attaches great importance to STI and has worked actively to implement its strategy of innovation-driven development. It has set a goal of achieving in-depth integration of STI in economic and social development and focused on addressing the bottlenecks constraining sustainable development. Guided by basic principles of the concept of innovation, problem-oriented with our efforts targeted at specific questions and open to both the outside world and multi-player participation with benefits shared by the whole society, We have thus strengthened the leading role of STI which is a durable driver for economic and social development.

We have scaled up efforts to build innovation demonstration zones for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda which will provide beneficial reference to other countries in their endeavor to realize sustainable development. We have worked to create and improve the environment for innovative entrepreneurship by implementing and improving financial and tax policies in support of small and medium-size enterprises and boosting their access to service and financing.

We encourage leading STI enterprises to combine high and new technologies and modern management models with enterprise technological innovation so as to leverage the leading role of technology for it to serve as a strong support for the sustainable development of manufacturing industry. At the same time, we have worked vigorously to implement the “Internet+” Action and the national strategy for big data. At present, the rate of contribution of science and technology progress to our economic and social development has reached 56.2%.

China is ready to continue to strengthen cooperation with all other countries to jointly promote scientific and technological progress and advance innovation-driven development. We are also willing to further deepen South-South cooperation and help other developing countries to the best of our ability. We will, in cooperation with the UN commission on science and technology for development, hold STI related training courses and workshops for other developing countries to enhance their capacity in science and technology, thus contributing further to the global implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Thank you for your attention.