(China in the past ten years) The chief looks at the economy: the "world factory" is upgraded, and China climbs up the mid-to-high-end value chain
China News Service, Beijing, June 3 (Reporter Xia Bin) "Made in China" all over the world has won the reputation of "world factory" for China. With the development of China's economy and society, this "factory" is also changing synchronously .
Cheng Shi, chief economist of ICBC International, said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Agency recently that data from the past ten years shows that China, as the "world's factory", has achieved practical results in transformation and upgrading, and has continued to climb toward the mid-to-high-end value chain.
"The added value of China's manufacturing industry has ranked first in the world for 12 consecutive years. The effect of industrial optimization and upgrading is remarkable, and the competitive foundation, competitiveness and competitive advantages of the manufacturing industry are gradually emerging." Cheng Shi pointed out that in terms of total scale, China's manufacturing industry will increase in 2021. The value is 31.4 trillion yuan, accounting for 27.4% of GDP that year, much higher than the proportion of other major manufacturing countries.
From the perspective of growth rate, the compound annual growth rate of the added value of China's manufacturing industry from 2012 to 2021 is 7.2%, which is also higher than the global average.
In Cheng Shi's view, China's high-end manufacturing is on the rise.
More and more Chinese manufacturing companies are going abroad and going global, and Chinese brands are gradually gaining global recognition.
The education level of China's labor force has gradually improved, and the high-quality labor force has grown. This change in resource endowment has enabled China's manufacturing industry to get rid of its dependence on cheap labor and turn to mid-to-high-end manufacturing, relying on engineer dividends to empower manufacturing.
Cheng Shi pointed out that China has replaced Japan as the center of the Asia-Pacific value chain trade network.
More and more countries rely on China for the supply and demand of goods and services, while Japan, a former manufacturing powerhouse, has become a sub-supply and demand center for Asian factories.
Although the United States is still the world's largest demand center in the complex global value chain trade network, its position as a supply center in the Asia-Pacific region has declined significantly.
Industrial transformation and upgrading has driven China's position in the global value chain to change.
"As the world's largest supplier, China is continuing to climb from the low-end to the high-end value chain." Cheng Shi said, for example, China's photovoltaic, new energy vehicles, home appliances and other industries rank among the top in the world, communication equipment, construction machinery, High-end brands such as high-speed rail go abroad, and about half of the manufacturing supply chain is in an overall leading state, among which high-tech manufacturing such as automobiles, parts, and measuring instruments is the main one.
Cheng Shi further said that, on the one hand, the innovation and professionalism of China's export commodities have improved significantly, reflecting the significant increase in the technological difficulty and technological content of the overall manufacturing of export commodities, which also shows the rapid progress of China's total factor productivity and labor productivity. .
On the other hand, China has become a global value chain trade hub and manufacturing center.
The change in the proportion of China's core industries in the global value chain reflects that China has rapidly formed a dominant position in the global value chain, especially in the manufacturing sector. China has formed a complete industrial category in the basic manufacturing industry chain.
Whether it is machinery manufacturing or electronic appliances, the proportion in the value chain has become the first in the world.
At the same time, China is actively promoting the deep integration of the domestic value chain and the global value chain, taking advantage of labor and capital factors, and gradually becoming a global trade center node and a core value chain hub in the vertical division of labor and cooperation model of the global value chain.
In recent years, there has been a saying in the outside world that there has been an industrial transfer in China, that is, foreign capital has moved out of factories in China, and Southeast Asian countries represented by Vietnam will gradually replace China's status with their labor advantages and some preferential policies.
"Industrial transfer is not a negative expression. A reasonable outward transfer of industries is actually a natural process of industrial transformation and upgrading." Cheng Shi believes that, for example, labor-intensive industries at the low end of the value chain will move to Southeast Asia, where labor costs are lower. transfer.
It should be emphasized that China's advantages such as complete infrastructure, complete industrial chain, and large export capacity are difficult to be surpassed in a short period of time, and it is unlikely that the industrial chain will move out on a large scale.
In the future, if it wants to reach a higher level in the global value chain, how should China exert its strength?
Cheng Shi suggested that we should strengthen our strengths to make up for our weaknesses, strengthen the chain to complement the chain, and realize the improvement of the entire chain, thereby improving productivity and promoting the overall industrial chain to move towards the mid-to-high end.
Specifically, "strengthening growth" is to continuously improve the interdependence between Chinese software technology and Western high-end hardware technology on the basis of stabilizing the competitive advantages of the existing value chain, which is a key breakthrough for China to enter the mid-to-high-end value chain.
"Filling up the shortcomings" is to strengthen basic science, optimize and concentrate resource elements to support key basic science fields, and seek to achieve leadership and breakthroughs in key basic science fields.
(Finish)