President Xi Jinping visits an exhibition on China's science and technology achievements in June 2016. (Photo : Xinhua)

The Chinese government has designated May 30 of each year "Sci-Tech Workers' Day" to honor the country's 81 million science and technology (S&T) workers.



The State Council, China's Cabinet, agreed to hold the first Sci-Tech Workers' Day in 2017, according to a statement from the China Association for Science and Technology and the Ministry of Science and Technology.




May 30 was chosen because 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) were held on May 30, 2016.



China's communist leadership set the target of China becoming a world S&T power by the middle of this century.



State-owned media said Sci-Tech Workers' Day will encourage all sci-tech workers to remember their mission; serve the country; play their roles in innovation and support the country's development to achieve the aim of building China into a world-leading S&T power.



Last June, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for greater confidence and perseverance from China's S&T workers to make China the vanguard of innovation-driven development.



The exhibition was held one day after the conclusion of the 9th National Congress of China Association for Science and Technology. Over 800 items were displayed in 10 exhibition areas, showing the best of China's major S&T achievements over the last five years.



The items included intelligent driving; deep-sea diving; robot surgeons; the Tianhe-2 supercomputer and the Beidou navigation system.



Other senior leaders including Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan and Wang Qishan, also visited the exhibition.

