To measure advances in innovative developments, China is developing a system to track progress, said Xu Yifan, deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS).

The NBS is conducting research into China's progress in building an innovation-oriented country and wishes to develop a series of indicators with set values, said Xu at a press conference on Monday.

Many areas of business in China had begun to build their own measures to properly follow advances in innovation, Xu said. China had made innovation part of its national strategy in a determined effort to enhance the country's overall abilities. 

Xu said the NBS would issue a special report on innovation development in October at the annual China Economic Growth Forum which is to be held at Suzhou in east China's Jiangsu Province.

The forum, entitled "Indigenous Innovation and Chinese Economic Growth", is sponsored by the NBS and local governments.

Officials from central and local governments, influential economists, Nobel Prize winners and leaders from some of the top 500 enterprises are expected to attend the event.

(Xinhua News Agency August 1, 2006)