Adrian Otten, Director of the Intellectual Property Division of the WTO Secretariat, announced at the 2007 China Intellectual Property Rights Protection Summit Forum on April 24 that China has become the most attractive investment environment for research and development, followed by the United States and India.

Statistics from the State Intellectual Property Office show that of the 476,000 patent applications in 2005, 80% came from domestic companies. More than 50% of patent applications for inventions came from domestic organizations. Otten said that only a few countries have reached such a level. In recent years, transnational companies have been expanding and upgrading the scale and level of research and development as the Chinese economy grows and the investment environment is improved.

A survey of 209 transnational corporations in the United States shows that China is transnational corporations' first choice for an overseas base.

China and India have become hot spots for research and development because of the potential of the huge local market, improvements in the investment environment and the availability of a large number of well-educated researchers.

Since China joined the WTO, an increasing number of transnational corporations have built research and development centers in China. Between June 2003 and June 2004, more than 200 foreign research and development centers were established in China. At the end of 2004, there were 750 foreign research and development centers. Now almost every transnational corporation has established a local research and development center in China.