China’s 81 million science and technology (S&T) workers are to have their own festival — a sci-tech workers’ day on May 30 each year.
The State Council, China’s Cabinet, agreed to set the day from 2017, according to a statement by the China Association for Science and Technology and the Ministry of Science and Technology on Tuesday.
The date was chosen because an event conflating the national conference on S&T, the biennial conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), and the national congress of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) was held on May 30, 2016.
During the event, the top leadership set the target of China becoming a world S&T power by the middle of this century.
The day will encourage all sci-tech workers to remember their mission, serve the country, play their roles in innovation and supporting the country’s development to achieve the aim of building China into a world-leading S&T power, according to the statement.