China's total spending on scientific research and development hit record 196.63 billion yuan (24.58 billion US dollars) in 2004, the National Bureau of Statistic (NBS) said in a report released on Wednesday.

The report said the spending in 2004, an increase of 27.7 percent from 2003, or 42.7 billion yuan (5.34 billion dollars) more than the previous year, accounted for 1.23 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), which was revised after the country's first national economic census.

The report showed the funds allocated to R&D by the central government had increased steadily over the past year.

The spending on basic R&D amounted to 11.72 billion yuan, up 33.7 percent, and that on application R&D 40.05 billion yuan, a rise of 28.6 percent from 2003, while the spending on experiment R &D totaled 144.87 billion yuan, an increase of 27 percent.

In 2004, the report said, the spending on scientific R&D by Chinese enterprises came to 131.4 billion yuan, a rise of 36.8 percent from 2003, while the R&D funds spent by state-owned scientific research institutes and colleges and universities increased 8.2 percent and 23.8 percent respectively to reach 43.17 billion yuan and 20.09 billion yuan.

Last year, altogether there were seven provinces and municipalities whose scientific R&D funds exceeded 10 billion yuan, including Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shandong, Zhejiang and Liaoning, the NBS report said.

Meanwhile, it said China's total expenditure on scientific and technological activities totaled 400.44 billion yuan in 2004, representing a 28.3 percent rise, or 88.29 billion yuan more than the previous year.

Source: Xinhua