As the world headed into 2022 grappling with the latest virus variant, China unveiled a sharpened version of the Made in China 2025 industrial policy blueprint. Previous iterations may have had nations like the US on edge, but this is the one to keep an eye on.
State planners released a five-year smart manufacturing development plan in late December that aims to digitise 70 per cent of the country’s large enterprises. China will now focus on building and owning industrial robots, as well as upgrading equipment and processes used in the manufacturing sector.
These may not have the same buzz as nanotechnology, new materials or human job-stealing robots — sectors targeted in the last “Made in China” plan. However, the latest blueprint has the potential to help Beijing become the factory floor of the future, with uber-efficient and precise machinery, at a time when the US’s biggest hurdle to competitiveness is just that. With global supply chains in a state of disarray, China’s intent to upgrade its vast industrial production sector and the ecosystem around it to bolster its role as the world’s supplier is shrewd and prescient: Beijing will do better what it already does well.
Core to the latest intelligent manufacturing plan is growing the country’s industrial robotics sector revenue at an annual rate of 20 per cent over the next three years and doubling the density of robots — a proxy for automation adoption. These aren’t just in factories, but also in warehouses, logistical functions and other related areas that make the entire sector operate in a way that raises productivity, including better and more electric cars, batteries and electronics.
In addition, Beijing intends to create small and medium companies that are focused on very specific sectors — what it calls “little giants” — that are globally competitive and essential to industrial technology. In doing so, it also wants to reduce dependence on foreign companies. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology called for improvements in areas like high-precision speed reducers, servo systems, robot controllers and integrated intelligent joints, according to analysts from Daiwa Capital Markets Hong Kong. These are all key components used in equipment for industrial automation that help with motion control and other machine functions.
Source : SHM
