The 4th National Conference on Science and Technology was held in Beijing from January 9-11, 2006. This was China's first conference on such scale in the 21st century. At the conference, President Hu Jintao outlined major strategic tasks for building an innovation-oriented country. Premier Wen Jiabao announced a State Council decision on issuing the 2005 national science and technology awards. The other three previous conferences of such magnitude were: the National Intellectuals Conference in 1956, the National Conference on Science in 1978, and the National Conference on Science and Technology in 1995.