China and Germany have jointly established a software research institute in Beijing.

Monday's launch of the institute was part of celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of the signing of an agreement on science and technology cooperation between the two governments.

Germany's leading research academies, the Helmholtz Society and Leibniz Society, are planning to open representative offices in Beijing.

Robert Paul Koenigs, chairman of the Sino-German Center for Science and Technology, said Helmholtz, which owns 15 large research centers in Germany, will open its Beijing office within the next year, "but I don't know the timing for Leibniz."

Koenigs said Leibniz has more than 80 advanced research institutes in Germany.

Yesterday's celebration was an occasion for high-ranking officials from both countries to recall their bilateral achievements in science and technology over the past quarter-century.

The officials heralded the Sino-German science and technology cooperation agreement signed in 1978 as the most important document between the two governments since they inked a diplomatic communique in 1972.

Between 1978-88 the two countries mainly focused on fact-finding missions and began cooperation in such fields as physics, electronics and environmental protection.

Project-oriented cooperation in areas such as metallurgy, physics and cultural heritages dominated the 1988-98 period, and today bilateral cooperation has expanded to more than 20 major fields.

Vice-Minister of Science and Technology Liu Yanhua expressed at the event the Chinese government's rigorous determination to heighten the close cooperative relationship in science and technology.

(China Daily October 14, 2003)