The Ministry of Industry and Technology Information and the National Development and Reform Commission have released an action plan to further promote the development of service-oriented manufacturing.

The move is aimed at carrying out a plan focused on developing service-oriented manufacturing to adapt to the national strategy of “Made in China 2025”. And the purpose of “Made in China 2025” is to lead the integration of manufacturing and service and speed up the transformation of traditional production-oriented manufacturing to service-oriented.

“Service-oriented strategy means a development toward the high end in the value chain.” said Zuo Shiquan, director of the China Center for Information Industry Development.

Service-oriented manufacturing is a new industrial form and an integral development of manufacturing and service, an important step during the transformation and upgrade of manufacturing. And through innovation and upgrading, and adding more service factors to the production process, enterprises in the manufacturing sector will improve production efficiency, additional value and market share.

Service-oriented manufacturing can play a crucial role in the process of upgrading industrial structure, so the two elements, manufacturing and service, should work cohesively. This new type of manufacturing, as an important measure of supply-side reform, also could become a new economic growth engine, benefiting the quality and profits of the supply system and complying with the demand of upgrades in consumption.

According to the action plan, China should reach a development stage of service-oriented manufacturing matching the process of “Made in China 2025”, where the leading role of innovation design is strengthened, integrated development is improved and Internet service is further expanded by 2018. During the process, the market should play a leading role with proper guidance from the government.

In addition, the value chain should be divided in three parts, research and design, manufacturing, and after-sale service. All three parts should be improved to gain competitiveness in the market.