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A China State Council policy paper released early this month aims to stimulate the country’s bioindustry by building a number of large enterprises operated by multinational companies.

The policy outline also encompasses “innovation-oriented small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and industrialization bases,” according to the June 2 People’s Daily Online report. Other reports on this appears in China Daily and Xinhua.

The measures, Policies to Accelerate Biological Industry Growth, comprise 33 items in 10 parts, involving policy targets, key fields in the biological industry, technology innovation, attracting talent and providing fund support.

China sees this bioindustry policy boost as potentially producing revenue of 500 billion yuan ($73.1 billion), although the timeframe for this is unclear.

“Efforts should be made to attract more technologies, talents and capital to the bio-industry and build an innovation system with companies playing the leading role. Important technologies, products and standards with Chinese independent intellectual property rights have to be developed,” the PD report says.

The policy document identifies priorities in the bio-pharmaceutical, bio-agriculture, bio-energy, bio-manufacturing and bio-environmental protection sectors.

”Governments at all levels are required to invest more on R&D and industrialization of bio-tech, especially on demonstration projects of priority technologies,” the PD continues. “The national government will give support to biodegradable materials and bio-energy products, including non-grain made fuel ethanol, bio-diesel, biomass thermal power, etc.”

Also, enterprises, research institutions, higher education institutions and individuals “are encouraged” to file for IP protection for new botanic varieties, patents and trademarks.

Favorable tax treatment will be granted to R&D costs for new technologies, new techniques and new products under the new policy.

The document also stresses the importance of greater efforts to protect biogenetic resources, bio-safety management and ethical review of bio-research.