Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan Thursday encouraged specialists to actively submit suggestions and proposals for top leaders to make decisions on the nation's energy development.

Zeng attended and delivered a speech at the plenum of the energy expert advisory committee under the National Energy Leading Group, which was held Thursday.

He asked the specialists to make earnest research on major problems China is facing in its energy exploration and to try hard to seek an energy development path that conforms to China's characteristics.

China supported its enterprises to cooperate with the United States counterparts in the fields of engines and assemblies on-board airplanes based on mutual benefit, said Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan on Thursday.

Zeng welcomed the United Technologies Corporation (UTC) to participate in China's aviation development during a meeting with George David, chairman and chief executive officer of the UTC which provides high-technology products and supports services to customers in the aerospace.

WASHINGTON -- As one of the world's fastest-growing economies, China is also the world's fastest-growing supporter of scientific research and development (R&D), the Science journal said in an editorial to be published on Saturday.

China's national R&D funding has taken the third place in the world, just behind the United States and Japan, according to the publication obtained by Xinhua.

China sees a rapid increase in R&D investment, with an annual growth rate of 18 percent over the past five years. By contrast, the United States, Japan and the European Union grew at a combined average rate of about 2.9 percent, the editorial said.

BEIJING - Forty-one percent of China's population will be living in economically-developed areas and cities that are prone to floods by 2020, Chen Lei, Minister of Water Resources, said in Beijing Friday.

"With the rapid economic and social development, population and wealth are converging on economically-developed areas and cities," said Chen, also deputy commander-in-chief of the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.