DSQC664 The manufacturing industry is the main production sector of the means of production and means of living required for economic development and social operation. It has the characteristics of intensive scientific and technological innovation, high industrial correlation and strong impact resistance. At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is developing in depth, and digital technologies are accelerating innovation, maturing, spreading and penetrating, becoming an important force in promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, enhancing the resilience of industrial chains and supply chains, and building a modern economic system. The industrialization of digital economy times presents new characteristics and new situation different from the traditional industrialization, which provides rare opportunity for China’s manufacturing industry to reconstruct competitive advantage.

Advantage reconstruction —

DSQC664 From manufacturing link advantages to comprehensive new advantages

Since the reform and opening up, China has deepened the reform of institutional mechanisms, expanded the opening up to the outside world, actively participated in the international industrial division of labor, gave full play to the comparative advantages of rich labor resources and low factor costs, formed a competitive advantage in the processing and manufacturing links, and become the world’s first manufacturing country.

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DSQC664 At the beginning of reform and opening up, China’s manufacturing advantage was mainly derived from lower labor costs, which formed a clear price advantage of China’s manufactured goods in the world market. With the expansion of the scale of China’s manufacturing industry, the deepening of the division of labor, the improvement of the industrial supporting system and the continuous improvement of the technical level, the advantage of the manufacturing link is not only reflected in the price, but also manifested as the advantage of innovative manufacturing. Chinese manufacturing enterprises can rapidly industrialize innovative product designs, and continuously reduce costs and improve quality in large-scale production. The transformation of manufacturing advantage from price advantage to innovative manufacturing advantage reflects the continuous upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry and the rise of its position in the global value chain.

DSQC664 In recent years, the advantages of China’s manufacturing industry in the processing and manufacturing links are facing great challenges. First, with economic growth, residents’ income level has increased, the demographic dividend has weakened, factor costs have risen, and environmental protection has intensified, and the cost advantage of the manufacturing industry has been continuously weakened. Second, the competition among the world’s major countries around the commanding heights of science and technology is unprecedentedly fierce, and the risk of the global supply chain with a high division of labor is increasing. Although China’s industrialization has completed the industrialization process of developed countries for hundreds of years in only a few decades, the overall technical level of the manufacturing industry, especially the technical level of the key links of the industrial chain, still has a large gap compared with the industrial power, and the risk of the industrial chain being “stuck” and the supply chain is intensified. Third, the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic has aroused great attention to industrial safety issues. Some countries have begun to restructure the global industrial chain, and the development of the industrial chain has become diversified, localized and nearshore.

Due to changes in domestic resource endowments, the international environment and global technological conditions, China’s manufacturing industry needs to reconstruct its competitive advantages under new conditions, shift from the original advantages of manufacturing links to comprehensive new advantages, and constantly enhance the resilience of the industrial chain, improve the quality of development, and improve international competitiveness.