Mr. GOU Zhongwen, Vice Mayor of the Beijing Municipal Government visited the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP)

the Vice Mayor (third from the left) watches the protype

on September 7th. He toured the Beijing Electron Positron Collider (BEPC), the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (BSRF) and listened to the plans of setting up a comprehensive research center in Beijing.

Prof. WANG Huanyu, Secretary of the IHEP Party Committee, extended his warm welcome to the vice mayor. Prof. Jiang Xiaoming, Associate Director of IHEP, introduced IHEP in general and its plans for mid and long term development. Mr. Liu Minghua, General Director of the Bureau for Basic Sciences under CAS introduced CAS plans for a comprehensive research center in Beijing.

After listening to the reports and seeing the BEPC facilities, the vice mayor was deeply impressed. He commented that the BEPC, as the iconic mega-science facility in China, represented the trend of development in its field. He further pointed out that one of the bottlenecks that hinder scientific innovations in China is the lack of advanced scientific facilities. Therefore, he agreed with the idea that a large comprehensiveresearch center be set up in Beijing. He stressed that because of its scale and importance, the center should be put into the national strategic plans and become the will of the central government. With this he believes that the center can be built into a first-class science and technology valley in China by combining the efforts of Beijing and CAS.

Officials from CAS and CAS's Beijing Branch joined the activities.

the meeting room