Academic says Chinese manufacturing must go high-tech to become major world producer

China plans to sharpen its manufacturing technology to become a world's manufacturing power in 15 years, academician Liu Baicheng said Friday at a forum on China's machine building industry.

The senior researcher from the Academy of Engineering of China is one of the writers of "China's Middle and Long Term Program on Science and Technology Development." He specialized in the topical research on "science and technologies for manufacturing industry."

According to Liu, the term "manufacturing power" is defined in his report as meaning "having a world-leading manufacturing scale, a cluster of heavyweight conglomerates with innovating and competitive capabilities and a number of world famous and diversified production centers."

Unlike other industrialized powers, Lin said, China's manufacturing industry has been growing at the cost of huge energy consumption and environments pollution. Its products have little added-value while its exports are characterized as labor-intensive and having little "technology content."

To solve all these problems, the report said three important spheres: the production of large and high-tech equipment, using environment-friendly equipment and computerizing the industry.