Industrial progress on track: regulator

China is capable of sustaining a relatively sound momentum in industrial development in the second half of this year, despite challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic downward pressure, said the nation's top industry regulator on Thursday.

Xin Guobin, vice-minister of industry and information technology, said the fundamentals of China's industrial economy remain good, and the long-term positive trend will not change due to short-term challenges.

His comments came after industrial output, a key gauge of industrial activity in the country, rose by 4.4 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of the year, compared with the 8.4 percent plunge in the first quarter due to the novel coronavirus epidemic, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

Industrial output growth rose to 4.8 percent year-on-year in June, compared with 4.4 percent in May, marking the third consecutive month that the barometer has remained in the positive territory since the epidemic, thanks to the effective epidemic containment and business resumption measures, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

High-tech industries and emerging digital technologies are gaining traction and playing a key role in shoring up the economy. By the end of June, China has built 410,000 5G base stations in total, with 257,000 of them constructed in the first half of this year.

Currently, China has 66 million 5G users, with a total 197 types of 5G devices gaining network access license, and the 5G smartphone shipment hit 86.23 million units this year.

The policy to encourage auto consumption showed an obvious effect, with the growth of added value of the auto industry reaching 12.2 percent in May and 13.4 percent in June.

The small and medium-sized enterprises showed a recovery trend with the major economic indicators changing from negative to positive in the second quarter of this year. The revenue of the SMEs saw an increase of 8.6 percent year-on-year in April and 3 percent year-on-year in May, with the total profits rising 14.9 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively.

Thirteen enterprises in China have started building production capacity for COVID-19 vaccines, and 9 of them have been approved to start clinical trials, the nation's top industry regulator said.

Huang Libin, spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said Chinese enterprises have been closely tracking the research and development of COVID-19 vaccines, and they are stepping up efforts to prepare for the large-scale production of COVID-19 vaccines in the future.