(Yicai Global) March 12 -- China special chemicals, electronic chemicals and core catalysts have long relied on imports. Addressing the issue, participants at the Two Sessions have suggested enhancing intellectual property rights protection and simplifying intermediate approval procedures to ease bottlenecks in the industry.

Ou Qi, a delegate to the National People’s Congress and deputy director of Zhejiang Longsheng Group’s Technology Center, said that some illegal elements use improper means to steal other people’s technology, breaching patent protection, in pursuit of profit. And it is difficult to provide evidence for IP litigation, with long trial cycles, greatly curbing enterprises’ enthusiasm for independent innovation.

It is not reasonable for regulators to require environmental assessment and safety assessment for chemical products during the research and development stage, said Zhang Yongming, another delegate to the NPC and chief scientist at Dongyue Group.

Testing and research is not part of the production process, Zhang said. The volume of samples processed is also limited, so it is impossible to provide fixed safety assessment and environmental assessment data. That hinders tech innovation by new chemical materials firms and hampers the transformation of test results.

Yao Jiannian, president of the Chinese Chemical Society and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, suggested that governments at all levels set up investment funds in accordance with the industrial layout to invest in unlisted long-term high-tech businesses and startups, supporting their entry into the capital market.

According to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology figures for 2018, of the more than 130 key basic chemical materials, 32 percent varieties were still blank in China and 52 percent remained dependent on imports.

Materials such as high-end electronic chemicals, high-end functional materials, high-end polyolefins, and so forth, cannot meet the needs of the economy and people’s livelihood.

Editor: Peter Thomas