China has made headway in building an innovative economy but enterprises' innovation capacity remains weak, said China's science minister on Monday.

Wan Gang, the minister of China's Ministry of Science and Technology, made the remarks at the ongoing 12th China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) Annual Meeting held in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, from Monday to Wednesday.

Wan said, science and technology research and development had received 15 billion yuan (2.24 billion U.S. dollars) from the central budget in 2009. A further 58 billion yuan had gone into such research and development from elsewhere, 70 percent of which came from enterprises investing back into themselves.

However, enterprises innovation capacity remained weak, said Wan.

China had 2.3 million sci-tech R&D staff and a 30-billion yuan sci-tech trading market in 2009, according to figures released at the meeting.

The CAST annual meeting is the highest level sci-tech meeting in China.