China will attach greater importance to data protection and develop its own security system to ensure confidential details cannot be accessed illegally or without permission,according to today's China Daily.

That was the message from Xu Guanhua, minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology at the foundation ceremony of East National Information Security Industry Base built in Shanghai.

"Information plays a crucial role in China's modernization, thus information security is of vital importance to China,'' Xu said.

He also stressed that China must develop its own information security system with independent intellectual property rights.

The establishment of the base is a key step in the country's effort to accelerate its development of information security industry.

As part of the National High Technology Research and Development Programme, also known as 863 Programme, the base was jointly invested in by Xu's ministry and the Shanghai municipal government. Four-hundred and eighty million yuan £¨US$57.8 million £© has been ploughed into its first phase infrastructure, covering an area of 283,100 square metres in Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Park.

Four State and two local information security-related research centres will join the base, including the National Research Centre for Information Security Engineering and Technology, the National Computer Virus and Hacker Technology Research Centre of 863 Programme, the Evaluation and Certification Centre Shanghai Branch and the National Information Security Testing.

Xu also pointed out that the final goal of the base is to transform the technology into products which can be produced in large amounts.

Dai Haibo, general manager of Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Park Development Company, predicted that in April of 2002, more than 20 technology enterprises will move into the base, whose products include firewalls, routers, proxy servers, gateways, security auditing products and commercial encryption products.

An incubator will also be established in the base.

According to Xu, the base is expected to be China's most important information security research and development centre, incubator and related products manufacturing base.