An employee checks welding robots at a manufacturer in Tangshan, Hebei Province. [Photo/Xinhua]
According to experts, China’s emphasis on developing the real economy and promoting new industrialization should lay a solid foundation for long-term economic growth and strengthen the country’s core competitiveness globally, despite downward pressures and uncertainties at home and abroad.
They also said that as China steps up efforts to promote industrial upgrading, more efforts should be made to enhance independent innovation capabilities and accelerate the deep integration of digital technologies into the real economy.
Her comments came after a report presented at the opening session of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party on Sunday stressed the need to modernize the industrial system as part of the country’s broader push to create a new development pattern and high-quality development .
“In the pursuit of economic growth, we must continue to focus on the real economy. We will advance the new industrialization and move faster to enhance China’s strength in manufacturing, product quality, aerospace, transportation, cyberspace and digital development,” the report said.
China will move the manufacturing sector towards higher quality, smarter and greener production, it said.
Long Haibo, senior researcher at the State Council Development Research Center, said, “The key to promoting the new industrialization lies in promoting the more sophisticated, intelligent and environmentally friendly development of the manufacturing industry, which plays a prominent role in strengthening the high-tech industry. Quality development and ensuring the security and stability of industrial and supply chains. China should continue to increase the share of manufacturing in the country’s GDP.”
According to Long, new-generation information technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G, big data and the Internet of Things have found a wide range of applications in advanced manufacturing and accelerated integration into the real economy.
Efforts are being made to develop new growth engines such as next-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment and green industry, the report said.
China’s manufacturing sector has maintained its growth momentum despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a complicated external environment.
Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that China accounted for nearly 30 percent of global manufacturing output in 2021, up from 22.5 percent in 2012, and maintained its title as the world’s top manufacturing country.
Li Xianjun, an associate researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China’s efforts to focus development on the real economy and enhance its strength in the modern industrial system will help make the country’s economy more resilient and stronger the ability to absorb external risks and shocks and turn the country into a manufacturing location.
“The manufacturing industry, as the main organ of China’s real economy, is playing an increasingly important role in promoting technological innovation, developing other strategic emerging sectors and strengthening the country’s core competitiveness on a global scale,” Li said.
Li Dongsheng, founder and chairman of Chinese consumer electronics company TCL Technology Group Corp, said China’s determination to develop its real economy and spur new industrialization is setting the direction for the country’s high-tech manufacturing and has created tremendous opportunities for growing businesses.
“Manufacturing is the foundation of the real economy, and enterprises, as key players that foster innovation, should continue undeterred to invest in high-tech manufacturing and expand their presence in upstream industrial chains,” Li said.
He also said TCL will focus on strategic emerging industries such as semiconductor displays, new energy, photovoltaic modules and semiconductor manufacturing materials, and contribute to the high-quality development of China’s manufacturing sector.
The purpose of upgrading the industrial system is to ensure the long-term and sustainable growth of China’s economy, said Pan Helin, co-director of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center at Zhejiang University’s International Business School.
The country’s real economy, he said, is expected to show greater vitality, fueled by technological innovation.
More efforts are needed to improve the technology innovation system, strengthen intellectual property rights protection to drive innovation, and optimize the business environment to attract capital and technology inflows, Pan said.
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