BEIJING, Jan. 21 -- China's manufacturing industry has maintained the top position in the world in terms of overall scale for 15 consecutive years in 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said Tuesday.

In 2024, China's total value-added industrial output reached 40.5 trillion yuan (about 5.65 trillion U.S. dollars). 

The industrial and information technology sector contributed over 40 percent of China's economic growth last year, effectively being a "stabilizer" and "anchor," said Zhang Yunming, vice minister of industry and information technology, at a press conference.

Over 570 of China's industrial enterprises have made it into the global top 2,500 companies in R&D investment, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the global total.

In recent years, China has striven for breakthroughs in key and core technologies, enhancing the innovation capabilities of its manufacturing sector.

In 2024, China established five new national-level manufacturing innovation centers in emerging fields such as new energy storage, micro-nano manufacturing, molecular drugs, humanoid robots, and embodied intelligent robots.

The ministry will continue to promote the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation to enhance the overall efficiency of the national innovation system, Zhang said.