The manufacturing industry serves as a pillar in China’s economic development. In this year’s government work report, efforts are called for to pool quality resources to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields.
Both lawmakers and political advisers from Guangdong Province have actively offered their suggestions at this year’s “two sessions” on how the manufacturing powerhouse can contribute to improving China’s manufacturing prowess as the country is faced with both opportunities and challenges.
“The added value of China’s manufacturing industry has ranked first globally for years in a row but compared with other established manufacturing powers such as Germany, the U.K., the U.S. and Japan, we still have a long way to go,” said Zhang Chunhua, a member of the country’s top political advisory body and chairman of China Brilliant Group.
Zhang told Shenzhen Special Zone Daily that from developed countries’ experience, producer services play an important role in supporting the manufacturing industry’s quality development, running through the whole process of production and manufacturing.
“The in-depth integration of the manufacturing industry and producer services is the only way to transform and upgrade the advanced manufacturing industry,” Zhang said, suggesting pilot projects to be launched in Guangdong and Shenzhen.
He Jianfeng, a deputy to the country’s top legislature and chairman of Shenzhen Investment Holdings Co. Ltd., expressed support for Shenzhen to establish the first batch of national manufacturing high-quality development pilot zones.
According to He, the explorations in building the zones should focus on three aspects, namely, strengthening basic industrial capacity, accelerating the digital, intelligent and green transformation of the manufacturing sector, and pooling resources for the industry’s growth.
Tang Dongsheng, a national political adviser and professor at Foshan University, said that small and medium-sized enterprises in industrial clusters should be encouraged to jointly embrace digital trends.
Tang added that all-weather and one-stop transformation services should be provided for enterprises to help match digital and intelligent service providers with manufacturing companies.
Lawmaker Yang Denghui, who is also a teacher at the Guangdong Machinery Technician College, said talents are crucial for the development of the manufacturing industry. Yang called for increased investment in skilled workers’ education to better cultivate high-quality skilled workers.