The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held a meeting here Monday to discuss major issues concerning the long- and medium-term program for the country's science and technology development.

The meeting, presided by Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, also deliberated on steps to accelerate science and technology development.

 "We must work more consciously to promote and rely on science and technology progress and innovation in a broader field so as to realize a substantial step forward in the development of the country's productivity," said a source with the meeting.

It was agreed at the meeting that formulating and implementing China's first long- and medium-term science and technology development program in this century is vital to realizing the goalof ensuring the Chinese people a relatively comfortable life, the success of the socialist modernization drive and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Noting that China lags behind the international advanced level in overall science and technology development, the meeting urged efforts to scientifically propose guiding principles, strategic targets and focal points for scientific and technological progress and work out a practical development plan.

"We must unswervingly take scientific and technological progress and innovation as the primary driving force for social and economic development, and take the improvement of independent innovation capacity as the central link in readjusting the economic structure, transforming the mode of growth and increasingthe competitiveness of the country," the meeting noted.

The participants also urged Chinese scientists to put the capacity for independent innovation in the key position for all science and technology endeavor, have a good grasp of a number of core technologies, own a few independent property rights and nurture some internationally competitive companies and trademarks in the next 15 years.