Manufacturing Industry in China Still an 'Aurora Industry'

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Manufacturing Industry in China Still an 'Aurora Industry'

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"Chinese manufacturing industry remains an industry featuring a speedy growth in dozens of years to come, namely still an "Industry of Morning Sun", said Zhu Sendi, Director of the Experts Commission of the Chinese Machinery Industry Association at the 2nd International Equipment and Manufacturing Fair opened on Sep.5, 2003.

Beginning from 1980s and over the past 20 years, two newly booming processing and manufacturing industry bases have come into being at the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, pointed out Zhu Sendi, which, together with the heavy industry base in Northeast China, were known as the three big bases of manufacturing industry in China. Up to now, the equipment manufacturing industry has come to be a relatively large base, forming an initial system of a certain scale and strength with part of the products featuring a relatively high quality. The output of power generating equipment and digital-control machine tools had been doubled from 2000 to 2002, ranking respectively the 4th and 6th place in the world.

According to the introduction of the related experts attending the fair, the gross output of the manufacturing industry takes up 40 percent of the national economy, 88 percent of the industrial added value. The tax handed in from the manufacturing industry comes to almost 1/3 of the national taxation. It has an employment of 80 million, accounting for 90 percent of the employed in all industries nationwide. China has witnessed a faster development of manufacturing industry, taking up a very large proportion in national economy. Nevertheless, the industry is facing a problem of being large though yet not strong. How to switch from a large manufacturing country over into a strong one remains a subject of great importance.

The problem the Chinese manufacturing industry is facing is that it has a relatively low productivity, hold the experts, only taking up one twenty-fifth that of the United States and one twenty-sixth that of Japan and almost on a par with that of India. The manufacturing technology is relatively low, the popularity of the products of fine quality and of low consumption being not up to 10 percent. So it has a great surplus of the low ability in production but a serious shortage of the hands with higher competence in production. The new-type manufacturing industry, such as aeroplane and integrated circuit occupies a very limited proportion with a low technical innovation while the consumption is high and pollution heavy. The energy consumption is that doubling the industry-developed countries and the pollution two times that of them. The industrial structure is not very reasonable with relatively fragile equipment.

Experts suggest China should, availing itself of the opportunity in which the international industry structure is being readjusted, take over in a selective but active way the transferred industries from the industrially developed countries and energetically develop the accessory industry in between the industries of raw material and the whole piece of product. While in the course of taking over the transferred industries it can help increase opportunities for employment, learn the management and technology and sort out some points for development and cultivate the partial superiority in the development of our own.

Article from Economic Reference Paper and Translated by PD Online Staff R. L. Han

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