Analysis of the problem of "avoiding misunderstandings in the construction of modern industrial systems" ④: We should not simply withdraw from traditional industries | industries | systems
Traditional industries are the foundation of modern industrial systems, and the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries directly affect the overall construction of modern industrial systems. However, in recent years, some places have labeled traditional industries, which not only lacks support, but even simply exits as low-end industries, seriously deviating from the inherent requirements of modern industrial systems, not conducive to high-quality development of the real economy, and may also bring risks such as industrial hollowing out, which urgently needs to be corrected.
Cognitive misconceptions lead to "liking the new and hating the old"
For a period of time, there have been many misunderstandings about traditional industries in society. Miao Wei, Deputy Director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, gave an example that when it comes to traditional industries, it is considered a high energy consuming and highly polluting industry. He links traditional industries with resource consumption and environmental pollution, and even one-sided believes that traditional industries are equivalent to backwardness and elimination. For example, it is believed that achieving high-quality development can only rely on strategic emerging industries and high-tech industries, and the technological transformation of traditional industries is not even mentioned. The policies and investment supporting enterprise technological transformation are becoming increasingly scarce.
These cognitive misconceptions have led to some places paying more attention to emerging industries such as integrated circuits, new energy vehicles, and electronic information in industrial planning and investment attraction, and insufficient support for traditional manufacturing industries; Some financial institutions simply view industries such as steel, non-ferrous metals, and petrochemicals as "overcapacity" and are very cautious in lending to legally compliant construction projects; Some traditional industry entrepreneurs lack the motivation and enthusiasm to continue investing and developing due to unstable development expectations and severe lack of confidence.
One objective reason for these misconceptions is overcapacity, which is also a chronic problem in the development of traditional industries in China. Over the past 40 years, industries such as clothing, textiles, household appliances, coal, and in recent years, new energy and steel have experienced severe overcapacity. This is mainly attributed to some places trying their best to attract investment, but neglecting the rational layout of industries and actual market demand, resulting in duplicate construction and overcapacity. Individual regions have intervened too much in addressing overcapacity, causing harm to traditional industries. A typical example is that after the outbreak of the 2008 international financial crisis, various regions actively phased out outdated production capacity. This was originally an effective way to resolve overcapacity, but in the specific implementation process, some traditional industries were innocently affected and became objects of forced exit.
In addition to accidental injuries, there are also proactive "simple exits", whose fundamental reason is that it is difficult for middle and low-end traditional industries to achieve high-end development through transformation and upgrading.
Firstly, the optimization of industrial structure lacks technology. Compared to emerging industries, the market for middle and low-end traditional industries is relatively saturated and competition is more intense. The only way to achieve high-end development is through innovative processes, upgrading products, and other means. Renovation and upgrading require high-end technology, high-end materials, and other support. However, in some areas of China, core key technologies are subject to human constraints, such as high-end CNC machine tools, programmable control technology, and many other industries that rely on imported design and simulation software, which have insufficient support for the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries.
Secondly, there is a lack of funds for enterprise transformation and upgrading. From 2018 to 2022, among the 31 major categories of manufacturing industries, the textile, textile and clothing, and leather industries experienced negative growth in revenue, while the wood, furniture, printing and other industries saw an average annual growth rate of less than 2% in revenue. The general decline in corporate profits and the tightening of cash flow severely constrain the investment and development ability of enterprises. At the same time, there are still concerns about financial support for traditional industries, and some banks are very cautious in issuing loans to traditional, mid to low-end manufacturing enterprises due to risk considerations.
Thirdly, it is difficult to change the low-level competitive landscape. Fu Baozong, Deputy Director and Researcher of the International Cooperation Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, analyzed that if overcapacity persists for a long time, it will lead to vicious competition, resulting in meager profits for enterprises, which in turn affects research and development investment and technological innovation, making it impossible to talk about transformation and upgrading, and thus sinking into a low-level competition quagmire.
It is not difficult to understand that the direction of traditional industry transformation and upgrading is clear, but the road is not easy to walk. It not only requires a large amount of manpower, material resources, and financial resources, but also needs to comprehensively consider constraints such as energy consumption, environmental protection, and land. Emerging industries have a faster growth rate and broad application prospects, making it easier to obtain support from factors and policies. Compared to the old, some local governments and financial institutions are inevitably fond of the new and dislike the old.
The transformation of traditional industries is of great significance
Is traditional industries really low-end and backward industries? On the contrary, in the international market, China's products with obvious comparative advantages are mainly concentrated in traditional industries such as light industry, textiles, and machinery. These industries have strong employment driving effects, high industrial correlation, and high international market share. They are the leading forces supporting China's economic development and also the driving force for China to participate in international competition.
In fact, there is no distinction between high and low industries themselves. What lags behind are technology, products, and level of refinement. Even traditional industries can be revitalized and shaped with new advantages through technological transformation, becoming a part of the modern industrial system. For example, the textile industry, which used to cause a lot of pollution, has now applied digital printing technology, implanted intelligent chips, and connected to other terminals such as mobile phones and cars, making it a high-tech industry. For example, the automotive industry has replaced engines with battery driven ones, changing the engine power system and becoming a strategic emerging industry that has received much attention.
To change the situation where traditional industries are treated as low-end industries and are simply withdrawn in some places, the first step is to clarify the misconceptions about traditional industries.
It must be recognized that traditional industries are a main battlefield for building a modern industrial system. The modern industrial system is a complete system formed by interconnected and highly correlated industrial chains, which complement each other in maintaining the integrity of the industrial chain and enhancing its value level. 80% of China's manufacturing industry is traditional, consolidating China's global advantage in the integrity of the industrial chain. In terms of enhancing the value level of the industrial chain, on the one hand, the demand for technology, equipment, and software in the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries provides strong momentum for the development of high-tech and emerging industries; On the other hand, high-tech industries also heavily rely on the energy, raw materials, and component support provided by traditional industries. This must be well understood.
Traditional industries are still an important channel for stabilizing employment and are of great significance for ensuring people's livelihoods. The results of the fourth national economic census show that there are over 110 million employees in industrial enterprise legal entities nationwide. In 2022, the average salary of employees in manufacturing enterprises above designated size nationwide was 86933 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.1%. China's traditional manufacturing industry accounts for more than 80% of the manufacturing industry's share, making it an important channel to attract employment and improve people's income levels.
There is still significant development space for traditional industries. According to Fu Baozong's analysis, from the perspective of consumer demand, most of the traditional industries are livelihood and basic industries, with the characteristic of rigid demand. With the upgrading of consumption, people's demand for high-quality products and services such as personalization, high-end, customization, and service-oriented is constantly increasing. Traditional industries still have significant growth space after transformation and upgrading. From the perspective of upgrading space, traditional industries such as machinery, textiles, clothing, and furniture use digital technology for technological transformation and upgrading, which in turn promotes the supply of new products and services, becoming an important force in forming new economic and new driving forces.
"To prevent industry labeling from distorting industrial policies," said Liu Zhibiao, Dean of the Yangtze River Industrial Economics Research Institute at Nanjing University and a specially appointed Changjiang scholar from the Ministry of Education. "Classifying industries according to certain labels, such as advanced and backward, high and low, traditional and modern, was a need for past industrial policies to select" losers "and" winners. ". In the construction of a modern industrial system, if this labeling method is continued, many industries with huge market demand and intensive employment will be forced to exit the market. The advancement or backwardness of an industry is not related to the industry itself, but rather to the industrial thinking and technology used for manufacturing.
Promote transformation and upgrading through multiple approaches
How to promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries? We need to increase confidence, intervene less, provide strong guarantees, reduce production capacity, and reduce costs. Through multiple measures, we will effectively improve the development environment of traditional industries and accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries.
Firstly, enhance confidence. We need to strengthen policy guidance, strengthen development confidence, and do a good job in coordinating the promotion of traditional industry transformation and upgrading. At the national level, we will issue guidance to promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, clarify the key areas of traditional industry transformation and upgrading, formulate specific paths, support methods, and supporting policies for transformation and upgrading by industry, encourage various regions to establish and stabilize support policies for traditional industry transformation and upgrading, and establish a stable and long-term working mechanism. Strengthen policy interpretation, publicity, implementation, and supervision guidance, reconstruct the understanding of traditional industries, and adjust and optimize unreasonable policy documents that restrict the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries as soon as possible.
Fu Baozong believes that currently, although some industry management authorities have been delegated to local governments, they are still managed through government approval or filing procedures, which disrupts market signals and weakens the drive for independent development of enterprises due to administrative control and intervention in micro enterprise activities. To this end, we need to accelerate the adjustment of the industrial management system and optimize the policy environment. One is to implement a unified negative list for market access, treating state-owned assets, private assets, and foreign investment equally. Completely eliminate various implicit barriers in areas outside the negative list. The second is to ensure equal use of production factors and enjoy equal treatment. The third is to continue to clean up and abolish unnecessary administrative intervention in economic policies.
Secondly, address the issue of insufficient funds. Technological transformation has the prominent characteristics of being new in technology, saving investment, short in construction period, quick in effectiveness, and good in benefits. It is an effective means to hedge against economic downturn pressure and improve investment driving effect. In the past, China supported technological transformation of enterprises and has developed some effective methods, such as loan interest subsidies, which play a role of "four liang allocation of a thousand catties". The government's 1 yuan can often drive enterprises to invest 9 yuan or 10 yuan. Miao Wei suggested that we should study and implement more supportive policies, expand policies such as interest subsidy for technological renovation loans, preferential interest rate loans, and equipment renewal and re lending, research and establish policy oriented development financial tools for enterprise technological renovation, actively guide and support enterprises with ideas and methods to accelerate technological renovation, and promote the optimization and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. At the same time, innovative finance supports traditional industries in various ways. Collaborate with financial management departments to optimize the detailed financial support documents for traditional industries, refine the negative list, and avoid a one size fits all approach to traditional industries. Encourage financial institutions to increase their support for traditional industry financing through means such as reserving financing quotas and innovating service models. Establish a special zone for the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries in the national industry finance cooperation platform, guiding banks, insurance, funds, etc. to accurately connect with the financing needs of relevant enterprises.
Thirdly, expand market space. Efforts will be made to promote consumption and expand market space, further release effective demand, and stabilize the overall scale and total supply. Guide and encourage bulk consumption, carry out activities such as new energy vehicles going to rural areas and smart home appliances going to rural areas. Strengthen new types of consumption, accelerate the digital transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, develop personalized customization and flexible production, and promote efficient integration of online and offline consumption. Vigorously expand new overseas markets and support enterprises to actively expand into emerging consumer markets through cross-border e-commerce and other carriers.
Fourthly, cultivate a group of leading enterprises with international competitiveness. Encourage the adoption of market-oriented and legal measures to increase the concentration of key industries, and cultivate a group of leading enterprises with resource control and international competitiveness. Vigorously promote technological transformation and equipment updates in enterprises, and apply advanced and applicable technologies to improve efficiency and efficiency. Deepen the implementation of intelligent manufacturing engineering, carry out digital transformation actions in the manufacturing industry, and create a number of intelligent factories and digital workshops. Implement the carbon peak implementation plan for the industrial sector and key industries, and comprehensively promote green manufacturing.
Zhu Hongren, Secretary of the Party Committee, Executive Vice President, and Chairman of the China Enterprise Federation and China Entrepreneur Association, stated that under the guidance of the new round of digital revolution, traditional manufacturing enterprises cannot be casually eliminated under the name of "low-end industries". Instead, efforts should be made to increase transformation and upgrading, shifting from mechanized, automated, and mass production in the past to a new networked, intelligent, and flexible production model using the digital economy as a means and green low-carbon economy as a direction. Through the application of advanced manufacturing technology, the labor productivity and added value of traditional industries can be effectively improved, advantages can be consolidated, competitiveness can be reshaped, and the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry can solidify the foundation of China's economy.
