The construction of Mianyang Science and Technology City should focus on strengthening independent innovation capacity and make more efforts to tackle key and core technologies, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said on Saturday during a visit to Mianyang in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The city received approval from the central government in 2001 to build the science and technology city, with the aim of becoming a regional technology hub.

Since then, the city has striven to explore scientific and technological innovation to promote economic and social development, secure national defense construction and actively undertake major national science and technology projects.

Positive results have been achieved during the past 20 years, said Liu.

He encouraged the city to fully implement the strategy of innovation-driven development to become an innovation hub in the Chengdu-Chongqing economic rim, and also give full play to its strong advantages of scientific and technological resources to promote the construction of infrastructure and platforms for common use, and integrate multiple resources including technology, capital, information, talents, and research facilities.

Industrial clusters with core competitiveness should be built to support the industrialization of advanced technologies such as satellite navigation, information security and intelligent equipment manufacturing, he added.

Liu also attached importance to the roles of scientific research facilities and management mode, talents, and market entities, calling for enhancing the capacity for scientific and technological innovation in the course of opening-up and cooperation.