On the afternoon of 29 May 2007, WAN Gang, Minister of Science and Technology met with Mr. Ho Peng Kee, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Law & Ministry of Home Affairs of Singapore and his party. The two sides exchanged ideas on issues relating to intellectual property rights (IPR) and S&T development.

Minister WAN Gang gave an account of China’s situation in constructing an innovative country, encouraging independent innovation and enabling enterprises to become the major players of innovation. He indicated that it is very important to protect IPR at the start of IPR creation. The work within the responsibility of MOST, he said, resides mostly at the source of innovation, therefore MOST attaches great importance to the protection of IPR.

Minister Ho Peng Kee said that he visited the government administrative departments related to IPR during this visit to China and he deeply felt the immense progress China has made in the protection of IPR in the past 5 years. He remarked that protection of IPR is the basis for the development of knowledge-based economy, which requires the balance of the rights of the creators, owners and users of the IPR.