A few days ago, the 2017 National People's Congress and the National People's Congress were held in Beijing, the capital of China. People from the scientific and technological circles have made suggestions and suggestions to add impetus to the construction of China's "science and technology power". A number of people in the scientific and technological circles clearly mentioned the issue of "domestic scientific instruments", and proposed to improve the technical level of research and development of domestic instruments and strengthen the competitiveness of domestic instruments in domestic and foreign markets.
The significance of scientific instruments in scientific research
According to the statistical survey of relevant data, there is a close relationship between scientific research equipment and scientific research achievements. Nowadays, the role of scientific instruments and meters in the development of national economy and science and technology is increasingly obvious. Scientific instruments and meters are the "multiplier" of industrial production, the "forerunner" of scientific research, the "combat effectiveness" of military affairs, and the "materialization judge" of national activities, which have been widely understood. The development of scientific instruments determines the output of scientific research achievements to a certain extent, and the development of scientific instruments and technological innovation complement each other.
Current technical level of scientific instruments in China
At present, the discipline of instrument science and technology in China has become increasingly perfect in terms of theoretical research, measurement standards, product manufacturing technology, research and application of new devices, new materials and new processes, and has formed an instrument industry system with relatively complete categories, reasonable layout, and considerable technical basis and production scale. According to the analysis of product technology level, the technology level of most domestic instruments is at the international level in the early and middle 1990s, and the middle and low grade products are basically complete, capable of mass production and stable quality; A few middle and high level products have reached the international level.
Trade deficit between domestic instruments and imported instruments
Due to the early establishment of foreign established and well-known instrument manufacturers, strong technology accumulation, strong financial strength and high overseas market share, China's domestic scientific instruments have a deficit in the competition with imported instruments, resulting in the low share of domestic scientific instruments in the international market. According to the data, from 2012 to 2014, the trade deficit between domestic instruments and imported instruments was as high as 17 billion, 16.6 billion and 17.7 billion dollars, respectively. Domestic scientific instruments encountered many difficulties in the development process.
CPPCC members have something to say
Xing Xinhui, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a professor of Tsinghua University, said: "The biological industry cannot do research without instruments. The development of the biological industry is very important to the national economic development. China's biological industry has a large development volume, but now 99.9% of the biological instruments are from abroad."
Wu Mingjiang, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice president of the Chinese Medical Association, said: "The medical field also dominates the import of imported instruments and equipment. China's high-end medical equipment," more than 80% of which rely on imports, and most of the core technology, materials or core components of such products are monopolized by foreign companies. Even if domestic production and assembly, core components or materials need to be imported, lacking core technology. "
Xu Tao, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "The weak industrial chain of domestic scientific research instruments and equipment is the fundamental reason for the failure of market competition. China's relevant regulations in the procurement process are not perfect enough, leading to imported instruments and equipment occupying most of the market."
In terms of the development of scientific instruments in China, there are indeed some problems. For example, the recognition of domestic instruments and meters by domestic users is not high, and there are "small, scattered and disorderly" in China's instruments and meters industry... Although there is a significant gap between domestic instruments and meters and foreign instruments. However, since the 11th Five-Year Plan, under the guidance of independent innovation policy, the technical level of instruments and meters has been greatly improved. At present, domestic instruments have entered the high-end application market in the fields of mass spectrometry, chromatography, spectroscopy, etc. It can be said that the technical strength and product level of China's instruments and meters are not the same.
National policy support and livelihood related domestic instrument and equipment development mechanism
China's "Eleventh Five-Year Plan", "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" and "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" national major instruments have achieved very obvious results in targeting large scientific devices. China's scientific device development platform has also been basically established. The existing scientific research mechanism has laid a very good foundation for the development of domestic civil instruments in China in the future. In fact, China's potential market for domestic instruments related to people's livelihood, including clothing, food, housing, transportation and other fields is very large, and high-end instruments will continue to move towards civilian use. For example, nowadays, pocket spectrometers and food safety analyzers are all examples of this. The state has issued policies to support the development of domestic instruments and equipment, and encouraging the use of domestic instruments and equipment will open up a large market for domestic instruments in people's livelihood.
Refine and implement the preferential procurement mechanism for domestic scientific research instruments and equipment under the same conditions
Throughout the domestic instrument market, imported instruments such as Thermo Fisher, Shimadzu and Agilent account for 50% of China's market share, which is in fact closely related to China's procurement mechanism. On April 20, 2015, the website of the Ministry of Agriculture announced the unified bidding procurement of instruments and equipment for the key laboratory construction project of the Ministry of Agriculture. Of the 506 instruments and equipment purchased by the bidding, the proposed import accounted for 97.8%, while the proposed purchase of domestic instruments and equipment accounted for only 2.2%. It is precisely because of the serious lack of "preferential procurement mechanism" in China compared with foreign countries that has led to this issue of public opinion. Refine and implement the preferential procurement mechanism for domestic scientific research instruments and equipment under the same conditions, and implement the bonus and preferential procurement mechanism for high-tech products with independent innovation, which will provide a great opportunity to reverse the weakness of the domestic instrument market and enhance the confidence of domestic instrument research and development.
Yan Zengxu, secretary-general of China Instrument Industry Association, said that the supply-side reform of the current scientific instrument industry should be carried out in two steps:
First, call for domestic instruments to be purchased as far as possible under the condition that domestic instruments can meet the demand. "Not all detection needs are high-end. Sometimes chromatographic instruments are used to detect only one indicator in the petrochemical field, and domestic instruments can fully meet the requirements."
Second, the domestic instrument industry should transform and upgrade, and take the road of specialization and specialization. Advanced scientific instruments and equipment are not only the premise of knowledge innovation and technological innovation, but also one of the main contents of innovation research and an important manifestation of innovation achievements. Therefore, the supply-side structural reform of the scientific instrument industry needs to be led by innovation.
At present, the development of the domestic scientific instrument industry has indeed encountered some difficulties, but it is urgent to implement the policy of solving the problems. China's domestic instruments have gone through many periods of development, and have approached the international development level in many fields. I believe that under the guidance of policy guidance such as the "domestic testing instrument and equipment verification and comprehensive evaluation project", we will see the progress of the domestic instrument industry in three, five or more years.