At the just-concluded National Two Sessions, General Secretary Xi Jinping’s “new quality productivity” became the most talked about hot word.
In September last year, General Secretary Xi Jinping first proposed new quality productivity during his inspection in Heilongjiang. Since then, he has mentioned and explained new quality productivity many times.
From the Central Economic Work Conference calling for the development of new-quality productive forces, to the in-depth and systematic exposition of new-quality productive forces at the 11th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, to now, new-quality productive forces have become a strong driving force and support for high-quality development. .
During the two sessions, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that developing new productive forces does not mean neglecting or abandoning traditional industries. It is necessary to prevent herds and bubbles, and it is not necessary to create a model.
This is a reminder that we need to clarify our understanding of "new productivity".
If you want to correctly understand new quality productivity, you must first understand the three "no's".
New productivity is not a single point
Recently, nearly ten emerging and future industries related to new productivity, including new energy vehicles, emerging hydrogen energy, new materials, innovative drugs, biomanufacturing, commercial aerospace, low-altitude economy, quantum technology and life sciences, have received widespread attention.
These emerging industries and future industries all contain major disruptive core technologies.
Does this mean that the development of new productive forces can only be achieved through breakthroughs in individual industries?
To answer this question, we can start with an industry that has become quite popular recently - automobiles.
Last year, China's automobile export volume jumped to the first place in the world, and the speed was amazing-it reached 2 million and 3 million units in 2021 and 2022, and crossed two million levels in 2023, reaching 522.1 Ten thousand vehicles, of which the proportion of new energy vehicles will increase from 7% in 2020 to 24.5% in 2023.
A major core competitiveness of China's new energy vehicles is to keep pace with the dual tracks of electrification and intelligence, and this is inseparable from the mutual assistance and promotion of China's Internet, electronic communications, and new energy industries.
In other words, the achievements of China's new energy vehicles have gradually grown in a huge industrial ecology like a forest.
What are the characteristics of the new productive forces formed in this way?
A frame of reference is the ability to withstand external risks.
Recently, some American politicians have come out one after another to express their intention to suppress China's new energy vehicles.
This has also caused many people to worry - they are worried that China's new energy vehicle industry has now reached a "ceiling" and can only hit a wall and go down.
In fact, many people don't know that since the Sino-US trade friction began in 2018, the suppression and containment of China's new energy vehicle field has already begun - the tariff on China's electric vehicles was once increased to 27.5%.
Under such circumstances, China's automobile export volume still climbed to the first place in the world in a few years.
China's new energy vehicles, which have grown up in the industrial ecology, have integration advantages and have greater room to deal with "stuck" situations.
In fact, this horizontal enabling relationship between industries has similar manifestations in some other high-tech industrial chains in China.
Let’s take the new energy industry as an example. In addition to new energy vehicles, China’s photovoltaic industry also leads the world. However, few people know that the photovoltaic industry and the LCD TV industry took root and thrived in China at almost the same time, because they are at the bottom of the industry. Silicon-based glass plates and etching have very similar manufacturing technologies, and the manufacturing process technology and management logic are also very similar.
This means that more sophisticated optoelectronic technologies in the LCD TV industry can be transplanted to the photovoltaic industry, and vice versa.
In different industrial chains, similar technologies can play a role in horizontal connection and reinforcement.
In other words, the development of China's LCD industry cannot be separated from the support of photovoltaic companies, and the development of the photovoltaic industry also owes its contribution to LCD companies.
When different industries are intertwined and re-embedded, a richer network can be formed, changing the original one-way breakthrough path of some key node technologies within the industry, and improving the efficiency of technological breakthroughs and applications.
After understanding this logic, it is not difficult to understand another hot word being discussed - intelligent connected cars.
New energy vehicles with intelligent network connectivity correspond to a new smart transportation model that is being brewed, also known as the "vehicle-road-cloud" integrated car networking system.
Nowadays, everyone is accustomed to querying the real-time location information of vehicles on online ride-hailing platforms.
When the "Chelu Cloud" is woven into the Internet of Vehicles, it can not only obtain data such as location, route, vehicle speed, etc. in real time, but also use vehicle driving data and cargo demand data to conduct reasonable route planning and cargo distribution, reduce empty-load rates, and improve Transportation benefits.
This involves far more than just the new energy vehicle industry, but an industry including government and industry regulatory agencies, suppliers of chip modules, equipment software, cloud services, communications, high-precision positioning maps, artificial intelligence large models, and travel services. System engineering for multiple entities and industries such as merchants and connected vehicle providers.
It is precisely thanks to the existing advantages of our industrial ecology that we can build such a platform based on this.
If you understand this, you will also understand the way we develop new productivity - new productivity is not a single point, it does not have to be done in isolation, but it must be based on our huge industrial ecological advantages and continue to develop. In the connection and collision, the release of innovative capabilities is accelerated.
New productivity is not chasing the new and abandoning the old
When we propose to accelerate the development of new productive forces, a very practical question is how to balance the relationship between "new" and "old".
Especially considering that 80% of my country's manufacturing industry is traditional industries, does this mean that these "old" industries must be abandoned to develop new productive forces?
Practice has proved that this is not the case.
The latest data shows that the total factor productivity growth rate of China's service industry that has undergone digital transformation is higher than that of the primary and secondary industries that have undergone digital transformation.
Such growth depends on the producer service industry - the service industry is divided into two types: producer service industry and consumer service industry, and the producer service industry is inseparable from the manufacturing industry.
The logistics industry is a typical producer service industry.
China's logistics costs account for about 15% of GDP. In comparison, some developed countries are much lower. Taking the United States as an example, this figure is less than 10%.
One of the reasons is that the U.S. economy is dominated by the service industry, and the scale of logistics required for production and daily life is smaller than that of China.
Last year, China's express delivery business volume exceeded 120 billion for the first time, equivalent to 63% of the global express parcel business volume last year, which is approximately 5.5 times that of the United States, 13.3 times that of Japan, and 23.5 times that of the United Kingdom.
At the fourth meeting of the Central Financial and Economic Commission held not long ago, the issue of effectively reducing logistics costs for the whole society was specifically studied.
Then, as the absolute value of logistics scale will continue to grow, the only way is to improve transportation efficiency.
At present, more than 70% of China's goods are transported by road, and road transportation itself has great room for efficiency improvement.
How to solve this problem?
Let’s go back to the “Internet of Vehicles” system we just talked about. Among them, the electrification and intelligence of transport trucks is an entry point. With the establishment of the “Internet of Vehicles” system, the model and format of the logistics industry will also change. Complete changes to achieve cost optimization.
Behind this is the development path of using new productive forces to empower the producer service industry.
Behind this, we cannot do without the solid foundation of manufacturing industry.
At present, the proportion of producer services in many Western countries is higher than that of China, but their total factor productivity growth rate is lower than that of China. One of the reasons is that the proportion of manufacturing is low.
The seemingly “old” manufacturing industry is an important basis for improving total factor productivity.
Some scholars have made calculations. From 2004 to 2021, the total factor productivity effectiveness of the digital economy in empowering the manufacturing industry has been increasing year by year, and in recent years, the average empowerment has reached its highest point.
When this study measured the "total factor productivity effect of digital economy empowering manufacturing" in different provinces, it also found that the three highest provinces during the investigation period were Guangxi (2.15), Jiangxi (2.09) and Fujian. (2.03), rather than in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shandong and other provinces with the most developed manufacturing industries.
The reason is that in areas where the manufacturing industry is relatively late in development, there is an objective contradiction between factor supply and allocation, as well as the problem of low equipment utilization and usage. The digital economy can enhance the efficiency of manufacturing through its convenient and intelligent features. The mobility of factors can more significantly empower late-developing regions to improve total factor productivity.
This is increasingly evident in the central and western regions of China.
Experts from the National Development and Reform Commission conducted a survey from a five-year perspective and obtained some more trendy findings:
In China, for traditional industries, the contribution of R&D investment to growth is easier to see.
New productivity does not specifically refer to a few strategic emerging industries, or only to the research of certain technologies. It is a concept of application and empowerment.
With China currently having the world's largest manufacturing industry and accounting for 80% of its traditional industries, China's economy has huge room for upgrading compared with other major economies in the world.
At the same time, the large-scale equipment updates we mentioned also support the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries through technical means.
Our development of new productive forces is to achieve a common step forward based on the current stocks of manufacturing and service industries.
New quality productivity is not something done behind closed doors
Whether it is the connection of industries or the transformation of traditional manufacturing industries, it sounds like developing new productive forces is China's own business.
What's more, in the context of some American and Western countries suppressing China's scientific and technological development and interrupting scientific and technological cooperation with China, does the development of new productive forces mean that the importance of international cooperation has declined?
This issue must also be understood within the logic of our own development, because our development is not to target or fight against anyone, to develop new productive forces, and to exclude anyone from the very beginning.
During this period, many European and American car companies stated that they would suspend the research and development of new energy vehicles. As a result, some arguments emerged that China's electric vehicles may become an "isolated island."
What is the reality? In fact, a simple set of data can answer this question. According to data released by the United States, the market share of pure electric vehicles in the United States has been increasing year by year starting from 2020.
According to the requirements of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), electric vehicles will account for 60% of new vehicle production in the U.S. market by 2030.
Europe, also affected by the energy crisis caused by the Ukraine crisis, is considering whether the EU-wide ban on the sale of fuel vehicles in 2035 is too radical, but this does not mean that Europe has to reverse course.
Whether looking at the general trend of industrial development or energy transformation, the so-called "U.S. and Europe abandoning electric vehicles" simply cannot withstand scrutiny.
However, while clarifying the real situation, Master Tan found that two emotions derived from this argument are more worthy of vigilance:
The former is "very popular" and believes that China has completely defeated the United States and Europe, and the next step can be to clean up the battlefield and dominate the global electric vehicle market outside the United States and Europe;
The latter is "beating their chests and beating their feet" and believes that the United States and Europe are killing people in order to break away from China's supply chain. Once China loses the U.S. and European markets, the domestic new energy vehicle industry will only enter the dead end of overcapacity and be eliminated by the so-called international Abandoned by the "mainstream" car companies.
The problem with these biased understandings lies in misunderstanding the relationship between our own development and the external environment.
The new energy vehicle industry itself actually provides a good scenario for us to understand this relationship.
Last year, China's new energy vehicle export volume ranked first in the world. Many people saw the word "first" and thought that China's new energy vehicle development had reached a "ceiling", but this is not the case.
Last year, Japan exported more than 4 million cars, but Japanese car companies sold more than 20 million cars globally - most of the cars were not produced in Japan, but in other countries.
This is determined by the characteristics of the automobile industry - automobiles are typically market-oriented products due to their high transportation costs. The closer they are produced to the place of sale, the easier it is to reduce costs.
Export is only the first step for China's new energy vehicles to go overseas.
In the 1990s, motorcycles produced in China were once popular in Southeast Asia. However, since Southeast Asia did not have a well-established motorcycle manufacturing ecosystem, it was difficult for Chinese car companies to take root in production. As a result, they had to sell their products to Southeast Asian countries first. As a result, they became popular very soon. We are about to fall into the vicious competition of “low price”.
Therefore, if we want to truly go global, we must share the value of our accumulated technologies and advantages, and constantly work together to create new ways of cooperation based on the principle that everyone benefits.
China's new energy vehicles have matured in this two-way open interaction.
As Chinese new energy vehicle companies go overseas to expand into new markets, we are also bringing this win-win model to Southeast Asia, Europe and other places where Chinese companies are involved.
These are all spaces for development.
The same logic applies when extending outward from the new energy automobile industry.
You can look at a set of data for 2023:
The latest released data shows that in the first 10 months of 2023, China's import and export of knowledge-intensive services increased by 8.9%, which is higher than the average level of import and export of the service industry.
There is another number closely related to the growth rate of import and export of knowledge-intensive service trade.
That is the proportion of foreign investment attracted by high-tech service industries.
In 2023, the actual introduction of foreign capital in the country's high-tech service industry accounted for 37.3% of the actual amount of foreign capital used, an increase of 1.2 percentage points compared with 2022 and a record high.
These data are enough to show that we are not trying to build things behind closed doors, on the contrary, we are trying to develop new productive forces in an open manner.
Similarly, only an increasingly large market space can support the further development of new productive forces.
This is the logic of our development and will not change.
(Yuyuan Tantian WeChat public account)