Made in China 2025 strategy to drive economic transformation

2017-04-17
english.gov.cn/Xinhua

The Made in China 2025 strategy will drive China’s economic transformation and upgrade its manufacturing industry, according to foreign media commenting recently on the 10-year plan.

Forbes.com said in a story that the plan shows China is endeavoring to promote innovation to keep winning in global competition.

Cai Yuan, a researcher at the Lowy Institute in Australia, said manufacturing in China must be upgraded, as traditional industries are losing competitiveness and labor costs are rising.

He said that some industries in China, including rail transportation equipment, communications and power equipment, have already been competitive in the international market. Some Chinese enterprises, such as Huawei and ZTE, have entered the market in developed countries.

Key tasks in the proposal include upgrading traditional industries, developing advanced manufacturing, and integrating traditional industries with emerging ones, such as 3D print and the robot and artificial intelligence industries.

According to the British Financial Times, Chinese enterprises are beginning to take the lead in lithium batteries, a sector that has been dominated by Korean and Japanese manufacturers.

Data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence shows that China’s output of lithium batteries will account for 62 percent of the world’s total by 2020, followed by the US (22 percent) and South Korea (13 percent).

In addition, the robot industry has become another highlight in China’s manufacturing upgrade. In 2016, the nation produced 72,400 industrial robots, up by 34.3 percent year on year, as shown by data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Xiong Yu, a professor at Northumbria University, said it would be a right direction for China to upgrade manufacturing with artificial intelligence, big data, and the internet, based on its huge domestic demand and strong technical ability.

While targeting traditional and emerging industries around the word, Made in China 2025 will raise the nation’s position in the global industry chain.

Experts believe that industrial upgrade is a necessary move for China to remain competitive, and requires constant fiscal support and R&D efforts.

That would explain the finance, tax, and other support policies laid out in Made in China 2025.

According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, China hopes to turn itself into a paradise for knowledge-intensive industry, and its strong capital input will give an upper hand to many Chinese enterprises in the world economic landscape.