The 2018 Zhongguancun Forum opened in Beijing on Friday, when experts from China and abroad gathered to discuss global innovation and high-quality development.

At a sub-forum on how innovation is being used to lead supply-side reform hosted by the China Academy of New Supply-side Economics and the Future Forum, Wang Yongli, former vice-president of Bank of China and member of the China New Supply Economics Fifty-member Forum, delivered a keynote speech covering research basics and scientific innovation.

Wang said that finance remains the key factor in resource allocation and the core of modern economics, and the development of the internet has brought about new opportunities as well as profound challenges in the finance industry.

The impact that the internet has had on finance will mainly be reflected in several aspects, according to Wang, with the trajectory of financial development, organization and operation undergoing fundamental changes.

Ding Hong, a researcher at the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also delivered a speech at the forum and said that basic research and the people in this field have played a decisive role in the previous industrial revolutions.

"Only by combining basic scientific research, industrial technology and market opportunities can we promote economic development and social progress at a higher level and on a larger scale," Ding said.

Sun Dawen, an academician of the Academy of Europe, delivered a speech on global innovation and the development of agricultural science and technology.

China's agricultural market relies more on the national policies, according to Sun, which have provided for a stable development space for local agriculture, but also limited the competitiveness of the country's agricultural development.

"In today's world, China's agricultural industry should take the initiative to actively participate in international competition for agricultural engineering and technology," Sun said.

Meanwhile, under the prerequisite of comprehensive assessment, the agricultural market should be opened up in a rational manner, so that some external competition can be introduced to promote our agricultural development, he noted.

In addition, the reform in the agricultural industry should also be deepened to promote the rapid development of China's agricultural science and technology, he said.