A team headed by Xu Dazhe, vice-chairperson of the Education, Science, Culture and Public Health Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), inspected the enforcement of the law on progress of science and technology in East China's Zhejiang province from April 17 to 21.

When visiting universities and enterprises in the cities of Shaoxing, Jiaxing and Hangzhou, the inspection team heard reports on the implementation of the law and held talks with representatives. The team also visited the Nanhu Revolutionary Memorial, the May Fourth Constitution Archives Exhibition Hall and the Red Boat on Nanhu Lake to learn about more revolutionary history and traditions.

The team hailed the extraordinary achievements made by Zhejiang and the three cities in the implementation of the law and sci-tech innovation. They said that governments at both provincial and municipal levels have attached great importance to sci-tech innovation, enhanced their strength in talent cultivation, and comprehensively boosted industrial innovation. By further optimizing the sci-tech talent structure, and achieving the transformation of innovation and entrepreneurship ecology, Zhejiang ranked among top performers nationwide in sci-tech development, and provided other regions with valuable experience and practices, the team noted.

Noting that Zhejiang is a pacesetter of the country's reform and opening-up and modernization drive, as well as a demonstration area for achieving common prosperity, the team called on the province to raise their sense of responsibility and urgency in further boosting national sci-tech self-reliance, further implementing the sci-tech progress law, and cultivating a positive atmosphere for government departments and sci-tech enterprises to study, master, follow and apply the law.

They also urged the province to make more efforts to take problem-oriented and demand-centered approaches, ensure the thorough implementation of relevant laws and supportive measures, and strike a balance between development and security as well as between incentives and restrictions. The spirits of scientists and the Red Boat need to be carried forward in the province, to facilitate commercialization of research outcomes, bring tangible benefits to the people, and support the building of a pilot demonstration zone for common prosperity and continue to be a provincial pacesetter of China’s modernization drive, the team said. 

Zhejiang should also make full use of the supplementary, pioneering and creative roles of regional legislation in translating applicable experience into legal norms, meeting the demands of emerging industries and social development with good institutional design, and making regional legislation more relevant, precise, systematic and timely, in a bid to lay a solid foundation for national legislation and build a set of laws and policies that match the nation's sci-tech development, according to the inspection team.