China's policies to encourage indigenous innovation are independent of trade policies, said China's Minister of Commerce Chen Deming yesterday.

Absorbing foreign investment is a key component of China's reforms, Chen said at a conference held in Tokyo. Despite the impact from the global financial crisis, China remained the world's most attractive investment destination.

Chen emphasized that China has been endeavoring to create a better-optimized and more open environment for foreign investment.

As to the "indigenous innovation" issue, Chen noted that China, as it is striving to make itself an innovative country, knows well that innovation can only be promoted through the protection of intellectual property rights.

"China has made intellectual property protection a national strategy, and set up a generally complete intellectual property-protection mechanism," Chen said.

He added that foreign-funded enterprises in China are "Chinese enterprises," and that their products are Chinese products. Their innovative activities in China are innovations of Chinese enterprises.

Meanwhile, he said that China's policies to promote indigenous innovation are not pegged to trade policies. In China's government purchasing, a product's added value in China is regarded as the standard to judge whether the product is "home-made."

"The standard applies to both domestic and foreign-funded enterprises in China," Chen said.
                                                                                   Source:People's Daily Online