Promote the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry and continue to play the good card of "Made in China"

Recently, topics such as "industrial relocation" and "replacement in Vietnam" have been hotly discussed. The author optimistically believes that the competitiveness of Chinese manufacturing will be difficult to replace in the short term. However, it must be noted that the manufacturing industry is crucial to promoting China's high-quality development, and it is necessary to further promote the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry on the basis of existing competitive advantages. Recently, the Central Propaganda Department's "China's This Decade" series of theme conferences focused on the manufacturing industry, pointing out the development direction of promoting the manufacturing industry to high-end leapfrogging, intelligent upgrading and green transformation.

Transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industry promotes high-quality development

Today we talk about the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. First of all, we need to correctly understand the importance of the manufacturing industry, which is mainly reflected in the following three points:

First of all, against the backdrop of major changes unseen in a century, the prosperity and competitiveness of a country's manufacturing industry actually represent the competitiveness of a major country. Including the United States is asking for the return of manufacturing, and the US government's fiscal stimulus plan is also vigorously strengthening the development of high-end manufacturing.

China has a very good manufacturing foundation. In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, we have entered the ranks of the world's major countries through manufacturing and become the world's second largest economy. Therefore, at a time when major power competition is focused on manufacturing, the key to the sustainability of China's future development lies in our competitiveness in the field of high-quality manufacturing.

The United States had a manufacturing industry in the early 19th and early 20th centuries. Later, with the degradation of the functions of manufacturing centers such as Detroit and Pittsburgh, the problem of industrial hollowing out appeared. However, China's manufacturing industry does not have the problem of hollowing out. Manufacturing is our comparative advantage, so it should be logical to take it to a higher level, making manufacturing a new driving force for China's high-quality development.

Secondly, the manufacturing industry has a powerful social service function for common prosperity, which is mainly reflected in creating more employment scenarios, bringing a stronger tax base, and laying a solid foundation for the government to solve income inequality and public welfare.

The first positive spillover effect brought by the manufacturing industry is manifested in its strong labor force absorption capacity, which can create an environment of common prosperity. Since the industrial chain of the manufacturing industry is very long, it can bring development opportunities to enterprises in all aspects of the upstream and downstream. Enterprises can find their own development path according to their own comparative advantages. Some technologies in the manufacturing industry can also be applied to agricultural production. In such application scenarios, ordinary working people who are willing to work can use technology to create jobs.

The industrial chain of the manufacturing industry is very long and complete. Therefore, we cannot easily talk about industrial upgrading regardless of the manufacturing industry. The service industry without manufacturing and the financial industry without manufacturing will struggle. The United States is a lesson from the past. The United States is now also aware that losing the manufacturing industry will not only reduce the stable income of most people, but also widen the gap between the rich and the poor.

The second spillover effect of the manufacturing industry is that its tax base is very solid, which can create a financial foundation for the government to serve people's livelihood. High value-added service industries, such as finance and innovative technology industries, despite their high added value, are vulnerable to economic changes, and their tax base is sometimes not stable enough. In comparison, the manufacturing industry is less affected by economic changes and has a weaker ability to avoid taxes. Therefore, the contribution of manufacturing taxation is the strongest and most stable. It is beneficial for the government to enhance its financial strength through manufacturing, and through methods such as transfer payments, to enhance services for people's livelihood and solve the problem of income inequality in third- and fourth-tier cities. Including in the context of the epidemic, fiscal efforts are more needed to stabilize the economy.

Because of the solid tax base of the manufacturing industry, it can be seen that as long as the manufacturing industry remains in the country, a country’s financial performance will be good. If the manufacturing industry is hollowed out, the financial performance will be correspondingly worse. For example, after the collapse of Japan's bubble economy, with the hollowing out of industries and the relocation of manufacturing industries overseas, Japan's fiscal and tax base is very weak, resulting in insufficient fiscal strength, and there will also be problems in providing funds for infrastructure construction and social security systems.

The Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a special session to explain the upgrading of manufacturing industry, including the Ministry of Science and Technology, which attaches great importance to the development of manufacturing industry. It is precisely because we have seen the detours that developed countries have gone through, and we cannot repeat the same mistakes. Therefore, it is necessary to correctly understand the importance of manufacturing industry, that is, the powerful social contribution function of manufacturing industry. Whether it is creating employment or generating tax revenue, manufacturing industry plays an important role.

In addition, the manufacturing industry is a very important starting point for finance to serve the real economy and ensure the flow of funds to the real economy. Some funds are invested in innovative industries or financial industries. It may be difficult to know whether the invested money is serving the public because there are no good targets. In the end, the external funds will be obtained through outsourcing or purchasing to complete the project delivery. However, if it can be applied to the manufacturing industry, it will be possible to see very clearly whether there are any innovative application scenarios, so as to effectively avoid capital idling, or the behavior of peddling dog meat, causing the economy to "turn from the real to the virtual". s consequence.

Change the development model of "two ends outside" in the manufacturing industry

The manufacturing industry is very important, but China's manufacturing industry must change the past "two ends outside" development model. At present, the development of our manufacturing industry lacks the competitiveness of the productive service industry. We have to buy other people's machine tools and chips, and then use our cheap labor and land resources to "make wedding dresses for others" and sell good products to consumers with capable developed countries. This kind of manufacturing development model with external resources and external markets cannot continue.

The manufacturing industry is an important driving force for the development of the domestic cycle, and the manufacturing industry must also be built on the basis of the domestic cycle in order to successfully transform and upgrade.

The main direction of the manufacturing industry is industrial digitalization and industrial greening, which will become the two-wheel drive engine of our manufacturing industry. Of course, in the context of the epidemic, health care is also the direction of the manufacturing industry, that is, safety. Digital industry, green industry, and medical industry are all efforts to transform and upgrade the manufacturing industry.

First of all, we have entered the digital age. Digitalization not only brings a new life experience, but also solves the problems of congestion and pain points left by the traditional era. In the past, due to the inability to grasp production and demand information in a timely manner, the manufacturing industry often experienced either excess capacity and increased inventory; or a mismatch with the needs of ordinary people, resulting in insufficient production capacity and insufficient investment.

With the in-depth mining and timeliness of digital information, the upstream of our manufacturing industry, such as "specialized, special and new" enterprises, can grasp the latest market demand through data mining, and provide targeted innovative products or related products. Parts are then transmitted to the downstream and consumer ends of the industrial chain. The emergence of digital technology has greatly increased the matching degree of our supply and demand.

A more important reason why the manufacturing industry should accelerate digitalization is that since 2008, the global economy has entered a long-term trough. The long-term trough is closely related to the transformation of the manufacturing industry. It can be seen that the supply of traditional products and services has been saturated. We need new industries to bring new experience and drive new demand. Only the upgrading of the manufacturing industry based on innovation drive can reactivate the saturated demand. In this sense, today's industrial digital development is the key to opening up the saturated demand in China and the world and creating new demand growth. Just like the increase in demand brought about by IT innovation back then, it brought about a change in lifestyle. We also look forward to the new round of manufacturing development brought about by the Industry 4.0 Internet of Things, so that ordinary people are willing to spend money to enjoy the happiness brought by the new life.

Therefore, this round of manufacturing upgrading is closely linked with innovation. China can no longer rely on cost to develop manufacturing, but rely on good things, technology, and core competitiveness. Such a development model in which demand is determined by supply can bring manufacturing competitiveness, which can make up for our advantages of gradually decreasing labor costs and land resources.

The second is industrial low-carbonization. Industrial low-carbonization is a common problem faced by human civilization. With climate warming and the reduction of renewable resources, we must assume the responsibility of a major country to maintain the natural ecological balance. This is also the embodiment of China's values ​​of win-win cooperation and common prosperity.

Although in China's current stage of development, the burden of greening the manufacturing industry is heavier and the greening burden of the service industry is relatively light, but because the manufacturing industry is our comparative advantage, the manufacturing industry needs to face the challenge of low-carbon transformation.

Industrial low-carbonization is not a simple concept of energy conservation and emission reduction, but a technical concept. We can use new technologies, new materials, and new energy to realize the low-carbon development of the manufacturing industry. People's yearning for a better life requires an environment-friendly manufacturing industry. At present, consumers have higher and higher requirements on the environmental protection of products, and the manufacturing industry must keep pace with the times to create products and services that satisfy ordinary people all over the world. For example, cars can be combined with new energy through smart technology to create a new experience and improve the air environment, but at the same time the product experience has not declined.

China needs to build its own value chain

After the transformation direction is confirmed, how to achieve it is related to the creation of China's value chain and the construction of a unified national market.

First, China urgently needs to build its own value chain. In the past, Chinese manufacturing was able to travel all over the world because it joined the global value chain created by developed countries and took advantage of our cost advantages to become a world processing factory. Under the current complex situation, it is uncertain to use a globalized value chain to develop China's manufacturing industry, and China needs to build its own value chain.

Now the society is talking about the phenomenon of "Vietnam replacing China" in some industries. We don't have to be too pessimistic on this point, because in the short term, it is unrealistic to find an industrial chain as large-scale and cost-effective as China. But we need to be alert to this trend and build our own value chain with greater urgency.

China has the most complete industrial chain in the world, which is China's core competitiveness. However, China's card is not complete. China also needs to solve the problem of the supply chain, the focus of which is to reduce the proportion of overseas R&D-led component imports and improve the ability of independent R&D. The collection of industrial chain and supply chain is the value chain.

To create an ecological environment for the value chain, first of all, there needs to be a company like Qualcomm that has the core technology of the manufacturing industry, and we need a 0-1 company. For example, Huawei, DJI, iFLYTEK, and especially the Chinese concept stock companies, they are the most powerful collaborators in the manufacturing industry and have the opportunity to develop into upstream suppliers. With original research and development, small and medium-sized enterprises that take the development path of "specialization, specialization and innovation" can be empowered to complete high-quality product production or component production, and even provide high-quality services. Therefore, orders will also come to the door actively. Instead of us going to find an order. In a word, in this era, supply determines demand.

The value chain can better identify the quality of enterprises through the cooperative relationship between enterprises. Good companies get orders and bad companies close down. Through the survival of the fittest in the value chain ecology, the core competitiveness of companies in the value chain can be greatly improved. This is more efficient than financial means and government support. In such a value chain ecology, some small and micro enterprises will also develop. They may not have high technical content, but their participation can improve the convenience of business operations, reduce their costs, and make it easier to reach consumers. High-quality products and services are delivered to consumers who are constantly pursuing a better life.

After the B-side value chain (supply) is completed, the next step is to release our consumption potential (demand) by building a unified national market. It is necessary to transform the supply into the needs of the common people, and bring profits back to the supply, so that the profits can be continuously re-supplied, forming a closed market loop.

China has a large and diverse consumer group, and the consumer market generally presents a "dual structure" feature. The relatively small high-end consumer group can keep this part of consumption in the country by developing high-quality manufacturing and improving the quality of supply; while the larger majority of ordinary consumer groups can choose cheap products through our thriving platform economy. Wumart merchandise. The huge market size can create vibrant application scenarios for enterprises.

On the basis of doing these things well, China can also increase opening up in the form of a negative list, invite global companies to participate, and share the opportunities and dividends brought about by the development of China's manufacturing industry.