Manufacturing upgrade benefits global economy
JINAN, Shandong: At the intelligent manufacturing base of Goertek Inc. in Weifang, a city in China’s eastern Shandong province, tons of components are assembled into virtual reality (VR) equipment for delivery overseas.
According to Chang Gang, Goertek vice president for marketing and sales, the firm is one of the few VR manufacturers globally to produce 1 million sets, and one of the largest makers of middleand high-end VR headsets.
Goertek embodies China’s advanced manufacturing industry. At the recent 2022 World Advanced Manufacturing Conference in Shandong’s capital Jinan, enterprises and experts discussed issues of global advanced manufacturing development.
Experts say the steady growth and upgrading of the East Asian country’s manufacturing industry brings a sense of certainty to the global economy.
Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show that the added value of China’s manufacturing sector increased from 16.98 trillion yuan (about $2.46 trillion) in 2012 to 31.4 trillion yuan in 2021.
To promote the sector’s transformation, China has built a modern industrial system led by the advanced manufacturing industry and promoted it to march into the middle- and highend of the value chain.
Take China’s domestic diesel engine as an example. The thermal efficiency of diesel engines made by Weichai Holding Group Co. Ltd. has exceeded 51 percent.
Compared with other market peers, the annual fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of this engine type have been reduced by 10 percent.
In a short video shown at the conference, Ban Ki-moon, former secretarygeneral of the United Nations, said the industry underpinned China’s sustainable development and economic growth.
He also said it had contributed to the achievement of the UN’s millennium and sustainable development goals.
Zhang Li, head of the China Center for Information Industry Development, believes the deep integration of newgeneration information technology and advanced manufacturing technology now penetrates all aspects of advanced manufacturing.
The frontier technology clusters formed by areas like artificial intelligence, mobile internet and blockchain will continue to promote the integration to development in many fields.
The common understanding at the conference was that economic globalization is irreversible, and openness and cooperation are the paths to developing the advanced manufacturing industry.
According to the industry ministry, China will continue to pursue high-level opening up of the sector and improve the business environment. It will also encourage local enterprises to strengthen international cooperation, integrate into the global industrial chain and help boost global economic growth.