Industrial output growth pegged at 5.6%

Nation on track to achieve desired goals despite risks and global uncertainties

Industrial output is forecast to grow about 5.6 percent year-on-year this year, hitting its annual growth target range of 5.5 to 6 percent, despite the growth pressure and global uncertainties, the nation's top industry regulator said on Monday.

Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei said in the face of significantly bigger risks and challenges at home and abroad, the ministry has fulfilled the objectives and tasks of the whole year in a relatively good manner.

According to him, the software and information technology service industry will see revenue growth of 15 percent year-on-year, while the internet sector will grow by 20 percent in revenue this year.

"Revitalizing the real economy, especially manufacturing, has become a consensus. Concrete steps have already been made to promote the high-quality development of manufacturing, and industrial management capabilities have been honed to better safeguard risks and better pounce on opportunities," Miao said.

Next year, the ministry will ratchet up resources to ensure the industrial economy grows in a reasonable range, with focus on stabilizing the investment into manufacturing.

More efforts will be made to attract money into advanced manufacturing, infrastructure and other areas that can have multiplier effects. The ministry will also pour more resources into boosting the industrial and consumption upgrade, Miao said.

China kicked off the commercialization of 5G in late October and so far, more than 126,000 5G base stations have entered services across the country. In accordance with the wider use of 5G across the country, more efforts will be made to popularize the application of technologies including 4K/8K TVs as well as virtual reality and augmented reality goggles, the ministry said.

The commercialization of 5G in China is expected to generate a direct economic output of 10.6 trillion yuan ($1.5 trillion) from 2020 to 2025, plus an indirect economic output of about 24.8 trillion yuan, while directly creating more than 3 million jobs, according to a report from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a government think tank.

Qin Hailin, a senior industrial economy researcher at the China Center for Information Industry Development, said progress has been made to stabilize growth, optimize its structure, promote integration of the real economy and digital economy, and to create a good business environment during the year. The efforts have laid out a relatively sound foundation for growth next year.

"We are still facing strategic opportunities and have a unique edge to fuel high-quality growth. We have the world's most complete industrial systems, a super-scale domestic market, sprawling talent pool, and competitive industrial and digital infrastructure," Qin said.

The ministry said next year, it will cultivate another four national manufacturing innovation centers to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies. It will also call on enterprises, entrepreneurs, industrial associations to make a joint push to solve the problems of weak industrial foundations.

Cao Zejun, vice-president of Huawei Technologies Co's China branch, said the country's IT industry still faces huge pressure, with domestic operating systems and chips having very low market share in the world.

But with joint efforts, the domestic IT industry can make progress to solve these problems in the long term, Cao said.