Take the manufacturer, take the world.

Li Qiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Premier of The State Council, surveyed the development of specialized new enterprises in Beijing on September 21, CCTV News reported.

In addition, in 2022 and 2023, Guangzhou shouted the slogan of “industry first, manufacturing city” for two consecutive years. Guangzhou, where the service sector accounts for more than 70%, has returned to manufacturing, which undoubtedly sends an important signal to the outside world.

In fact, according to incomplete statistics, the country has at least more than 10 provinces, a number of cities have stressed to increase the proportion of manufacturing, the “industrial city” and “manufacturing strong city” as an important strategic goal of the “14th Five-Year Plan” development.

Manufacturing industry is the foundation of the country, strong industry can be strong economy. The first meeting of the 20th Central Financial and Economic Commission emphasized accelerating the construction of a modern industrial system supported by the real economy. Looking across the country, the development of manufacturing industry in the first place to boost the real economy has become the consensus of all walks of life.

A series of new trends in the return of Chinese cities to manufacturing are worth watching.

Manufacturing city

70% of the country’s glasses are produced in Danyang, Jiangsu, more than 80% of pearls are produced in Zhuji, Zhejiang, and 70% of the world’s lighters are produced in Shaodong, Hunan.

In the first half of this year, China’s manufacturing industry turned in a bright report card.

Among the 41 industrial categories, 26 industries achieved growth, with an increase of 63.4%. Among the 620 major industrial products, 331 products achieved an increase in output, an increase of more than 50%.

From new energy, new materials, biomedicine to artificial intelligence and digital economy, China’s manufacturing industry supports the high-quality development of China’s economy, and is also an important magic weapon for cities to “break through”.

Manufacturing city, who is leading?

In the first half of 2023, China’s top 10 cities in terms of industrial revenue were Shenzhen, Shanghai, Suzhou, Foshan, Beijing, Chongqing, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Dongguan.

In terms of scale, among the top ten industrial cities in China, the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta have a clear lead. Among them, the Pearl River Delta occupies four seats, including Shenzhen, Foshan, Guangzhou and Dongguan, is a well-deserved manufacturing town.

Qin Jian, director of the Regional Development Institute of the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences and executive vice president and researcher of the Guangzhou Urban Strategy Research Institute, said in an interview with the Beijing News Xinjing Think Tank that under the unified promotion of the province, various places have formed a high degree of consensus on promoting the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry, such as Guangzhou proposed to adhere to the industry first and the manufacturing industry, and Shenzhen stressed the importance of adhering to the manufacturing industry. Foshan clearly regards the manufacturing industry as the foundation of its development, and Dongguan has proposed high-quality construction of a strong city of science and technology innovation and manufacturing, and has introduced a package of support policies and measures according to its own characteristics.

“Since the beginning of this year, Guangdong’s industrial, advanced manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing investments have shown a rapid growth trend of more than double digits, and advanced equipment manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, integrated circuit and other industries have achieved rapid growth.” Qin Jian said.

The Beijing News Xinjing think tank noted that the proportion of manufacturing in Foshan and Dongguan has been maintained at about 50% all year round. This is rare in the country, higher than Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Nantong and many other “trillion” cities in the Yangtze River Delta.

Take Dongguan for example, since the reform and opening up, the Dongguan manufacturing industry has created the phenomenon of “Dongguan traffic congestion, global shortage” of “world factory”, especially the electronic information industry, every 6 mobile phones sold in the world, there are 1 production in Dongguan.

The electronic information industry is the “mainstay” of Dongguan manufacturing industry.

In 2022, the output value of Dongguan’s electronic information manufacturing industry reached 947.02 billion yuan, and a complete industrial chain such as new generation communication equipment, mobile phones, new intelligent terminals, and semiconductor components has been formed. Recently, with the return of Huawei’s mobile phone business, as an important production base, Dongguan’s electronic information industry is expected to continue to maintain a strong growth momentum.

Zeng Gang, dean of the Urban Development Research Institute of East China Normal University and tenured professor of regional economics, told the Beijing News Xinjing Think Tank that looking back on the past, the development of Dongguan’s electronic information industry mainly benefited from the spillover and diffusion effect of Shenzhen and Guangzhou’s industrial development, which is a “successful history” of regional economic integration.

In the view of Zeng Gang, on the whole, Dongguan electronics industry is currently in a critical period of survival transformation and upgrading development, farewell to “cheap assembly” production, to “design and research and development” services, to achieve the jump from economies of scale to quality economy, is its development trend.