China, Gates Foundation join hands to invent health products

BEIJING: China and Gates Foundation have inked a deal worth $ 300 million to provide health and farm technology to poor and developing countries.

In a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in Seattle yesterday, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and China's Ministry of Science and Technology affirmed their commitment to focus on innovation that meets the needs of developing countries and advances progress toward the Millennium Development Goals, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Under the MoU, for every dollar the foundation gives to support selected China-grown products and technologies that help advances in health and agriculture, particularly in the developing world, China will grant $ 2.

Human and animal vaccines, diagnostics for tuberculosis and other diseases, hardier varieties of rice and other crops, and more productive livestock are among the innovations likely to be considered first.

"Innovation to advance human welfare is a goal that China shares with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and together we can do more to improve agriculture and health in some of the poorest nations worldwide," Vice-Minister Zhang Laiwu said after signing ceremony in Seattle.

This is the first time the ministry has formed a partnership in such fields with a foreign non-governmental organisation, state-run China Daily quoted him as saying.