Critical sectors key to future growth path

Industries include next-gen IT, AI, biosciences, new energy, materials

China will double down on efforts to nurture strategic emerging industries including next-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, biological sciences, new energy and new materials and foster new growth engines. This will be part of a broader push to speed up the construction of a modern industrial system backed by the real economy amid external uncertainties, according to the country's top economic regulator.

In an article published on Saturday in Qiushi Journal, a flagship magazine of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Zheng Shanjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, called for efforts to beef up research and development in tech frontiers and forward-looking fields, while highlighting the need to consolidate the country's leading position in competitive industries.

Heightened efforts will be made to transform and upgrade traditional industries by leveraging advanced technologies, re-engineering the industrial foundation and tackling key issues in major technologies and equipment, while shoring up weak links in industrial chains, Zheng said.

He said China should advance high-level opening-up, further attract foreign investment, support enterprises to enhance their capacities in global operations and take an active part in formulating international economic and trade rules.

Zheng also stressed the efforts to promote the in-depth integration of digital and real economies, accelerate the industrialization of digital technologies and the digital transformation of industries, and establish digital industrial clusters with global competitiveness.

China's emphasis on speeding up the building of a modern industrial system underpinned by the real economy will help improve the resilience of its industrial and supply chains, strengthen the capacity to buffer against external risks and shocks, and gain a competitive edge in strategically important fields, said Li Xianjun, an associate researcher with the Institute of Industrial Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

More efforts should be made to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields including basic materials and software, precision components, integrated circuits and high-end equipment, to enhance China's independent innovation capacity, Li added.

"The manufacturing sector, as the main part of China's real economy, is playing an increasingly crucial role in motivating enterprises to bolster technological innovation, facilitating the development of other strategic emerging sectors, and enhancing the country's core competitiveness on the global stage," Li said.

China has maintained its position as the world's largest manufacturing nation for 13 straight years, accounting for nearly 30 percent of global manufacturing output in 2022, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Pan Helin, co-director of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center at Zhejiang University's International Business School, underlined the importance of stepping up support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and further optimizing the business environment, given that enterprises have played a prominent part in driving technological innovation.

"Faced with increasingly fierce international competition, the construction of a modern industrial system is of great significance to push the manufacturing sector toward higher-end, smarter and greener production, and inject strong impetus into China's economic recovery," Pan said.

Li Dongsheng, chairman of consumer electronics maker TCL Technology Group Corp, said, "China's manufacturers should transition from exporting products to exporting industrial capacities, ramping up localized operations abroad and speeding up their layouts in overseas markets to cope with changes in the global economic landscape and rising trade protectionism."