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Bill Gates eyes to invest in China's innovative projects

Microsoft Founder Bill Gates Is Looking To Invest In A Range Of Projects In China - Including Pollution Control, Productive Rice And Convenient Vaccine Storage Facilities - To Help The Country’s Millions Of Poor.

PTI | Updated on: 29 Mar 2015, 11:07:39 PM

Beijing:

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is looking to invest in a range of projects in China - including pollution control, productive rice and convenient vaccine storage facilities - to help the country’s millions of poor.

Gates said his charity foundation the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which he co-chairs with his wife, is cooperating with Chinese innovators.

He said the foundation, which was established in 2000, was working with high-tech companies in China on research in areas such as productive rice and vaccine freezing.

“We are investing more and more money and have a lot of specific partnerships growing,” Gates said while identifying agriculture as a particular area that offered many opportunities.

“We were partner on the Green Super Rice [project], which is valuable not only here but also in Africa,” he told state-run Xinhua news agency on the sidelines of Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan where he also met Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He said he was looking to tie up with Chinese fridge maker Aucma for portable storage for vaccines, and another research project on how to limit pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector.

These are projects that the entire world needs solving, Gates said.

“China’s capacity for biological and IT breakthroughs is growing very rapidly, and China is in many way the world agriculture leader. There are many areas that we are not funding that have the potential to help other countries,” he said.

After leaving the corporate business world more than a decade ago, one of the the richest men in the world threw himself into charity work.

The Seattle-based foundation focuses on health and poverty in developing countries.

Last year, it distributed USD 3.9 billion in grants.

Without disclosing how much the foundation would channel into China, Gates said the foundation was increasing its presence in the country where the government is stimulating innovation with no efforts spared.

He said the foundation’s talent incubator, Grand Challenges, will hold its annual conference in China for the first time later this year.

“We are challenging scientists in China to help find solutions for the poor,” Gates said.

According to the latest official statistics, there were 98.99 million people living under the poverty line in China as of 2012.

21 Chinese innovators have had their ideas funded by the foundation since the competition began 11 years ago.

“We would like to see that number increase. So far China only accounts for 5 per cent of submissions,” he said.

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First Published : 29 Mar 2015, 11:00:00 PM

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