China 'to become world's most important center for innovation by 2020'

New Delhi, Dec 06 (ANI): China will overtake both the United States and Japan to become the world's most important centre for innovation by 2020, according to a public opinion survey to be published on Monday.

China is already the world's second-largest economy, after establishing itself as the global workshop for manufacturing. Now it wants to move up the value chain by leading in invention as well.

Today, the United States ranks as the world's most innovative country, with 30 percent of people surveyed taking that view, followed by Japan on 25 percent and China on 14 percent.

Fast-forward 10 years, however, and 27 percent of people think China will be top dog, followed by India with 17 percent, the United States 14 percent and Japan 12 percent, according to the survey of 6,000 people in six countries done by drugmaker AstraZeneca, reports the China Daily.

The shift is not because the United States is doing less science and technology, but because countries like China and India are doing more - a fact reflected in a spike-up in successful Asian research efforts in recent years.

The survey across Britain, the United States, Sweden, Japan, India and China found a strong sense of optimism amongst people living in China and India, in contrast to relative pessimism in the developed Western economies.

More than half of those in China and India thought their home countries would be the most innovative in the world by 2020, while just one in 20 Britons thought Britain would be able to claim this title.(ANI)