China's Fourth National Conference on Science and Technology opened Monday morning in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Chinese President Hu Jintao delivers a speech at the conference, the first national conference on science and technology in the new century held by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.

At 9:00 a.m., China's top legislator Wu Bangguo announced the opening of the conference, attended by all nine members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Premier Wen Jiabao announced a decision of the State Council on issuing the 2005 national science and technology awards, including two top awards and awards of various classes.

Chinese President Hu Jintao made clear that the major tasks of the ongoing conference .

Hu Jintao said: "the main tasks for this conference is to analyze the situation, reach common understanding, summarize experiences, make clear the development tasks and deploy the implementation of the country's middle-and-long-term program for science and technology development from 2006 to 2020."

The conference, which is also the country's first of such type in the 21st century, will also serve to mobilize the whole country and the Communist Party of China (CPC) to go unswervingly along the path of innovation with Chinese characteristics, work to form an innovative country and break new ground for the building of a well-off society in China and accelerate the socialist modernization process.

Hu, on behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, also paid tribute to science and technology workers' outstanding contributions to the development of China's science and technology undertakings.

Source: Xinhua