China's Hu urges stronger copyright protection

Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for stronger protection of intellectual property rights to help foster innovation and boost the country's international competitiveness, state media reported on Saturday.

"(Hu Jintao) emphasised that strengthening construction of our intellectual property rights system ... is an urgent need in order to strengthen our ability to innovate," the television report said. "It is urgently needed to strengthen our enterprises' competitiveness, and to improve our country's core competitiveness," the pharaphrased report added. It did not contain any direct quotes from Hu. (Reuters)