China unveils ambitious plans to upgrade manufacturing power

At the State Council Executive Meeting presided by Premier Li Keqiang on March 25, key points of the State Council’s legislation work in 2015 were confirmed. The implementation of “Made-in-China 2025” strategy will be accelerated to realize the upgrade of the manufacturing industry.

During the meeting the Premier also listened to the merger progress report of the country’s top train makers, China CNR Corp and China CSR Corp, and stressed the need to optimize resource distribution by reforming state-owned assets and enterprises.

General arrangement for this year’s legislation work is a key measure to deepen and build the rule of law, and promote governing modernization. A plan on the State Council’s legislation work in 2015 was passed at the meeting, and some key legislation items were confirmed concerning fields such as improving the socialist market economy system, people’s livelihood, cultural development, and environmental protection. Among them, governmental investment regulations and the environmental protection taxation law will soon be submitted for deliberation, regulations on housing guarantee in urban area, farmland irrigation and water conservancy, residence permit administration will also be legislated soon.

The meeting demanded that the rights and responsibilities of the government should be granted by law. The government should avoid exceeding its power to release documents that substitute laws. New administration approvals should be strictly controlled in legislation. Second, legislation should be coordinated with reform and restructuring. Development achievements should be guaranteed by law. Third, insist on scientific and democratic legislation. Public participation and supervision mechanisms should be improved.

The executive meeting also said that ten sectors have been selected as key development fronts to build the nation into a strong industrial power by 2025.

The selected areas include information technology, high-end numerical control machine and automaton, aerospace and aviation equipment, maritime engineering equipment and high-tech vessel manufacturing, advanced rail equipment, green vehicles, electric power equipment, new materials, biomedicine and high-performance medical apparatus and agricultural industry equipment.

The meeting said China’s traditional manufacturing industry must improve its quality, become greener and more intelligent, as well as adapting to the trend of being increasingly integrated with the Internet industry.

The government will come out with a catalogue, including key industrial sectors and their direction of upgrade. The list will be adjusted as needed in the future.

As China is in the middle of industrialization, during which the manufacturing industry is a major foundation of the national economy, the initiative to upgrade the big manufacturing country into an industrial superpower is key to help China maintain economic growth at a medium to high level.

The meeting also asked to deepen reforms in enterprises owned by the State or invested with State-owned capital, accelerate pilot programs of companies with investment from State-owned capital, give full play to the market mechanism, promote cooperation of excellent enterprises, optimize the allocation of resources and effectively solve problems such as repeated construction and excessive competition.

Other instructions from the meeting include further improvements to the corporate governance structure and the incentive and restraint mechanisms, lift the management level, promote the development of core technology and integration, develop new business models, enhance the vitality of State-owned enterprises, enhance the profit rate and contribute to taxation.

The meeting also stressed to promote the sale of Chinese equipment aboard so as to forge a new advantage in global competition.