Proposal urges cooperation to spur innovation

Shanghai needs to do more to encourage multinational corporations to boost innovation in the city, a newspaper executive proposed Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

"Until now, Shanghai's major innovation system still relies on domestic academic institutions, universities and State-owned enterprises. It is not enough. We need to break with the old, traditional system to deal with further challenges to development," said Shanghai CPPCC member Jiang Shiliang, director of the science and technology department at the Wenhui Daily newspaper.

Although the city government has introduced a series of incentive polices to attract foreign research and development centers, it has not taken effective measures to integrate world top research resources into Shanghai's innovation system, Jiang said.

Many multinational corporations in Shanghai have shifted their focus to establishing core central research centers.

Jiang said they have the desire to participate more in city's innovation system.

Jiang suggested the local government ought to make detailed arrangements on issues like patent rights, intellectual property and taxes that would be necessary if a cooperative research and development system was established.