BEIJING, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's industrial added value above designated size in 2020 had a year-on-year increase of 2.8 percent, according to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China on January 18, 2021. Among them, the manufacturing industry had an annual growth rate of 3.4 percent and is expected to rank first in the world for 11 consecutive years.
China's manufacturing industry demonstrates strong resilience despite of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and trade protectionism. Under the application and development of digital economy accelerated by the pandemic, China's manufacturing industry will usher in new development opportunities.
-- Digital economy brings new opportunities to manufacturing industry
Although China's industrial added value had a 13.5 percent year-on-year plunge at the beginning of 2020, it drew a sharp V-shaped rebound curve by an upward trajectory since March 2020, thus becoming a major pillar of the economic recovery in China. In particular, the foundation role of pillar industries got further consolidated including the accelerated recovery of high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing.
Data show that in 2020, the added value of high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing went up by 7.1 percent and 6.6 percent respectively over the previous year, 4.3 and 3.8 percentage points higher than the average level of all industries above designated sizes. The auto manufacturing sector also had a remarkable growth rate of 6.6 percent.
Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS, said that China's traditional industries are speeding up the pace of transformation mainly to meet the demand, enhance research, development and sales, and advance the integration with the service industry. China has a broad prospect for industry development and new potentials will be unleashed, added Ning.
It is widely recognized that new potentials and opportunities are contained in the wave of the fourth industrial revolution - the science and technology iteration boosts the rapid growth of digital economy and digital trade. Meanwhile, the pandemic has accelerated the application and development of digital economy, which turns out to be a new driver for economic recovery in the post-pandemic era.
According to Yao Xinwei, associate professor with Zhejiang University of Technology, China has built up the 5G SA network of the largest scale and the highest level in the world, based on it, China will experience the explosive growth of digital economy driven by 5G and AI technologies during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.
Yao believed that China will become the hottest AI test field in the world. The new industrial form of "Made-in-China" will take shape in smart factory, intelligent production, intelligent logistics and intelligent data service, offering Chinese products, experience, standards and elements to the fourth industrial revolution.
-- Innovation drives high-quality development of manufacturing industry
Innovation is the core driving force for the high-quality development of China's manufacturing industry. The year 2021 will be a crucial year for China to implement the strategy of innovation-driven development. The Central Economic Working Conference held at the end of 2020 proposed for the first time to promptly formulate the ten-year work plan for basic research, and support local governments in building international and regional sci-tech innovation centers where conditions allow. The conference stressed on giving full play to the pivotal role of enterprises in sci-tech innovation, supporting the pioneering enterprises to form innovation consortiums, and boosting the innovation activities of medium- and small-sized entities.
Constantly consolidating and upgrading the position of "Made-in-China" in the global value chain is not only a short-term need to address the impact of pandemic and protectionism, but also a medium- and long-term strategic need to strengthen the independence and controllability of China's industry chain and supply chain, and propel the high-quality development of manufacturing industry as well, said Yao.
Mao Daqing, Academic Committee Member of the Pangoal Institution and founder and chairman of URWORK, said that the medium- and small-sized sci-tech entities are an important force to incubate new drivers of growth and push forward high-quality development, and the sci-tech innovation capability is the invulnerable competitiveness of enterprises.
In Mao Daqing's view, the platform enterprises like URWORK are gifted with the gene of becoming the innovation consortiums. Through diversified products and services in both hardware and software aspects, they are able to well integrate the advanced technologies and business models, and provide localized solutions on intelligent work. They are also capable of better integrating China's emerging technologies to improve the office and spatial operation efficiency, actively cultivate and incubate the technology-driven innovative projects and strategic projects, guide more innovation activities by medium- and small-sized entities, consolidate the principal position of enterprises in innovation, boost the high-quality development of innovative enterprises, and contribute to the building of a modernized economic system.
(Edited by Bao Nuomin with Xinhua Silk Road, baonuomin@xinhua.org)
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