According to OECD estimates, China’s current expenditure on R&D amounts to only 1.3% of GDP, compared to 3.2% in Japan and an average of 2.5-2.6% in South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. Although the government recently announced that it intends to increase R&D spending to 2% of GDP by 2010, this remains below the OECD average of 2.2%.