Wang Zhongyu, president of China Enterprise Confederation and China Enterprise Directors Association, delivers the keynote speech at the Top 500 China Companies Release Conference and Corporations Summit held Sept. 4-5, 2010 in Hefei, Anhui province. [hf365.com]

At a press conference on Sept. 4 following the release of China's Top 500 Companies list, China Enterprise Confederation and China Enterprise Directors Association president Wang Zhongyu touted China's large companies as the main promoter of independent innovation in the country.

According to Wang, China's large companies have been making constant progress in raising their competitiveness and innovation capabilities, with the ratio between R&D input and revenue increasing steadily.

In 2010, China's top 500 companies owned 169,000 patents, up 13.3 percent over the previous year.

Despite these inroads, China's large companies, to some extent, lag behind the world's top companies in terms of resource integration, innovation capability, individually-owned intellectual property rights, brand building and international presence. Such factors have stymied companies' sustainable growth, Wang said.

Wang urged China's large companies to fulfill their pivotal role in the country's independent innovation initiatives. He further said that the key to China's economic transformation lies in domestic innovation.