The China Manufacturing 2025 plan has been released, outlining 9 strategic tasks to break through 10 major high-end fields.

The long-awaited Chinese version of "Industry 4.0" planning - "Made in China 2025" has finally been implemented. According to the Chinese government website, the State Council recently issued "Made in China 2025" after being approved by Premier Li Keqiang, deploying a comprehensive implementation of the strategy to build a strong manufacturing country. This is the action program for the first decade of our country's strategy to build a strong manufacturing nation.

The plan begins by stating that "the manufacturing industry is the main body of the national economy, the foundation of the country, the instrument for national prosperity, and the basis for national strength. Since the mid-18th century, when industrial civilization began, the rise and fall of world powers and the struggle of the Chinese nation have repeatedly proven that without a strong manufacturing industry, there can be no national and ethnic prosperity. Building a manufacturing industry with international competitiveness is the only way for our country to enhance its comprehensive national strength, ensure national security, and build a world power." The plan reviews the development history of China's manufacturing industry since the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially since the reform and opening up, pointing out that our country has established a complete and independent industrial system, which has strongly promoted the process of industrialization and modernization, significantly enhanced comprehensive national strength, and supported our status as a major world power. However, compared with the world's advanced level, China's manufacturing industry is still large but not strong, with obvious gaps in independent innovation capability, resource utilization efficiency, industrial structure level, degree of informatization, quality and efficiency, etc. The tasks of transformation, upgrading, and leapfrog development are urgent and arduous.

Currently, the global manufacturing development pattern and China's economic development environment are undergoing significant changes. A new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is historically intersecting with our country's acceleration in changing the economic development model. The international division of labor is being reshaped, and our country must seize the rare strategic opportunity, highlight innovation-driven development, optimize the policy environment, leverage institutional advantages, and achieve the transformation from "Made in China" to "Created in China," from "Chinese speed" to "Chinese quality," and from "Chinese products" to "Chinese brands."

"Made in China 2025" proposes to adhere to the basic policy of "innovation-driven, quality first, green development, structural optimization, and talent-oriented," and to follow the basic principles of "market-led, government-guided, based on the current situation, looking to the long term, overall promotion, key breakthroughs, independent development, and open cooperation," to achieve the strategic goal of building a strong manufacturing country through a "three-step" approach: the first step is to enter the ranks of manufacturing powers by 2025; the second step is to reach the medium level among the world's manufacturing powers by 2035; the third step is to further consolidate our status as a major manufacturing country by the centenary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, with comprehensive strength ranking among the world's manufacturing powers.

To achieve the strategic goal of building a strong manufacturing country, "Made in China 2025" clarifies nine strategic tasks and priorities: first, to enhance the national manufacturing innovation capability; second, to promote the deep integration of informatization and industrialization; third, to strengthen the industrial foundation capability; fourth, to enhance quality and brand building; fifth, to fully implement green manufacturing; sixth, to vigorously promote breakthroughs in key areas, focusing on ten key fields such as the new generation of information technology industry, high-end CNC machine tools and robots, aerospace equipment, marine engineering equipment and high-tech ships, advanced rail transit equipment, energy-saving and new energy vehicles, power equipment, agricultural machinery, new materials, biomedicine, and high-performance medical devices; seventh, to deeply promote the structural adjustment of the manufacturing industry; eighth, to actively develop service-oriented manufacturing and productive services; ninth, to improve the international development level of the manufacturing industry.

On April 23, Li Keqiang inspected the only local model and practical example of "Made in China 2025" - Quanzhou.

"Made in China 2025" clarifies that through government guidance and resource integration, it will implement five major projects including the construction of national manufacturing innovation centers, smart manufacturing, industrial foundation strengthening, green manufacturing, and high-end equipment innovation, to achieve breakthroughs in key common technologies that have long restricted the development of the manufacturing industry and enhance the overall competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry.

To ensure the completion of the target tasks, "Made in China 2025" proposes eight strategic supports and guarantees, including deepening institutional and mechanism reforms, creating a fair competitive market environment, improving financial support policies, increasing fiscal and tax policy support, establishing a multi-level talent training system, improving policies for small and micro enterprises, further expanding the opening up of the manufacturing industry, and improving the organizational implementation mechanism. "Made in China 2025" emphasizes that all regions and departments must fully recognize the significant importance of building a strong manufacturing country, strengthen organizational leadership, improve work mechanisms, research and formulate implementation plans, refine policy measures, and ensure that all tasks are implemented.

Regarding how "Made in China 2025" will promote innovation and development in the manufacturing industry, improve quality and efficiency, and assist China in transforming from a major manufacturing country to a strong manufacturing country, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei introduced that countries around the world, in response to the international financial crisis, have profoundly recognized through both positive and negative experiences and lessons that support for the development of the real economy must never be abandoned at any time. If this point is abandoned, the impact and shock will be very significant; if it is not abandoned and consistently upheld, the impact and shock will be relatively small. From the process of responding to the international financial crisis, looking internationally, countries around the world have proposed to return to manufacturing, revitalize the equipment manufacturing industry, and implement new industrial development plans, etc. The terminology may vary, but a series of strategies, plans, and programs for the development of the manufacturing industry have been introduced. From the domestic situation, China's economic development has entered a new normal. The new normal is a transition from high-speed growth to medium-high-speed growth, changing the past long-term low-end development in the manufacturing value chain to move towards mid-to-high-end development.

Miao Wei pointed out that from the perspective of the manufacturing industry itself, after more than sixty years of construction, especially more than thirty years of development since the reform and opening up, a relatively complete industrial system has been established, and the scale of the entire industry has reached the world's first, accounting for about 20% of the world's manufacturing share, making it a major manufacturing country.

Every real economy has both advantages and disadvantages, and China's manufacturing industry is no exception. In the view of Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei, in terms of advantages, first, we have a huge market and an increasingly rapidly growing market demand. Second, we have a large number of vibrant and dynamic enterprises. Third, we have a long-term policy and strategy for developing the manufacturing industry. Fourth, we have a large pool of human resources, especially in the new era, a continuous influx of high-quality talent represented by college graduates into our manufacturing industry, which constitutes our four major advantages.

Regarding the existing problems, Miao Wei summarized: according to the problem-oriented approach, first, we still lack persistent investment in innovation and the concept of innovation-led development. Second, there are still many issues regarding product quality. Chinese manufacturing does not necessarily mean first-class quality or first-class product quality. Third, our structure is not optimized enough; although we have a large number of enterprises, truly internationally competitive enterprises are still relatively few; although we have a large number of talents, we lack leading talents in multinational companies. Fourth, we face increasingly strong constraints from resources and the environment; we need to save energy, reduce emissions, and develop, and how to handle this relationship is a problem. Fifth, we still need a continuous influx of new labor dividends to support our development. In the first thirty years, we basically relied on the transfer of surplus labor from rural areas to support the rapid development of China's manufacturing industry. As the demographic dividend gradually disappears, our new round of development requires talents at all levels and in all fields, with knowledge and skills to support the development of the entire Chinese manufacturing industry.

Miao Wei used the overall structure of "one, two, three, four, five, fifty" to summarize the "Made in China 2025" plan. The so-called "one" is one goal: we want to transform from a major manufacturing country to a strong manufacturing country, ultimately achieving our goal of becoming a strong manufacturing country.

The so-called "two" is to achieve this goal through the integration of informatization and industrialization. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party proposed to lead and drive the development of the entire manufacturing industry through the deep integration of informatization and industrialization, which is also a high ground that our manufacturing industry must occupy.

The so-called "three" is to achieve the goal of transforming from a major manufacturing country to a strong manufacturing country through a "three-step" strategy, with each step taking about ten years.

The so-called "Four" refers to the four principles we have established. The first principle is market-led and government-guided. The second principle is to focus on both the present and the long term. The third principle is to promote comprehensively while achieving breakthroughs in key areas. The fourth principle is independent development and win-win cooperation.

The so-called "Five-Five" consists of two fives. The first five refers to five guidelines: innovation-driven, quality first, green development, structural optimization, and talent-oriented. The other five refers to the implementation of five major projects. The first is the construction project of the manufacturing innovation center; the second is the strengthening of the foundation, which we call the strong foundation project; the third is the intelligent manufacturing project; the fourth is the green manufacturing project; the fifth is the high-end equipment innovation project. Finally, there are ten key areas where breakthroughs are sought in technology and industrialization. For example, the new generation information technology industry, high-end ships and marine engineering, aerospace, and the new energy vehicle sector, etc. Ten key areas have been selected for breakthroughs, which is the main content of China's manufacturing 2025.