The four-day 2024 World Manufacturing Convention (WMC) held in Hefei, capital of Anhui province, offered 700 projects to top business leaders from around the world, inviting investment of CNY350 billion. Foreign dignitaries, government officials, and top executives from Fortune Global 500 enterprises and multinational corporations participated in the annual trade show, bolstering Anhui's ambitions to become a regional hub for smart manufacturing among domestic and global players. According to the Anhui Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology (APDEIT), the province has set up a modern industrial system after years of development, covering 40 major sectors, among which manufacturing spans 31 major industries. The Convention's theme this year is “Intelligent Manufacturing for a Better Future”.
The WMC, now in its sixth edition, aims to promote the province's advanced manufacturing capabilities to the outside world, while introducing similar ones from the outside to Anhui. During the past six WMC sessions, more than 3,600 manufacturing projects were signed, with actual investment surpassing CNY1.5 trillion.
Liang Yanshun, Party Secretary of Anhui, said the province must take industry as its foundation and expand new quality productive forces, enhancing Anhui manufacturers' efforts to go global. Anhui Governor Wang Qingxian stressed that in order to boost Anhui's industrial clusters, it is imperative to develop 10 new emerging industries. The province expects to realize business revenue of CNY1 trillion from its equipment manufacturing industry and CNY500 billion from the information technology and new materials industries this year, he said.
Top Chinese manufacturers have shown growing reliance on research and development (R&D) and cutting-edge technologies as new growth drivers, participants at the WMC said. According to a report launched at the Conference by the China Enterprise Confederation and the China Enterprise Directors Association, innovation played a stronger role in driving business growth of the top 500 Chinese manufacturing firms last year. In 2023, the top 500 Chinese manufacturers increased their R&D spending by 12.51% to CNY1.23 trillion. Their R&D intensity also reached 2.37% during the period, up 0.04 percentage point year-on-year. As they move to become more tech-intensive, the top 500 Chinese manufacturing firms posted a collective revenue of CNY52.01 trillion last year, up 1.86% year-on-year. Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said: “China is seeing innovation becoming the core engine of new industrialization. The integration of technological breakthroughs and industrial applications has become vital for enhancing productivity and securing China's position in global supply chains.”
In December 2012, when The Economist identified Hefei as the world’s fastest-growing metropolitan economy, not many thought the capital of Anhui province would be able to maintain its steady pace of growth. Ten years later, the city’s GDP reached CNY1.2 trillion and surpassed CNY1.27 trillion in 2023. Before the province reached that landmark, The Economist noted on August 5, 2023, that Hefei is still full of vitality. As for the province itself, with 16 prefecture-level cities, including Hefei, and a population of some 62 million, its GDP reached CNY4.71 trillion in 2023, up 5.8% year-on-year.
“From artificial intelligence to cloud computing, China is now a leader in innovation. The industrial world is now stepping into a period where the development of innovations and technologies is fundamentally changing the traditional way of doing business,” said Mohamed Noureldin, an Egyptian post-doctoral researcher who has spent 11 years studying and working at the Hefei-based University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). “To maintain their competitiveness and attract investors, manufacturers need the correct and up-to-date technologies,” he added.
Ammar Hawbani, former Associate Professor at USTC, has been living in Hefei for 16 years before moving to Liaoning province last year, said the city with seven national science and technology laboratories, is essential for scientific research in China. In 2004, the Ministry of Science and Technology designated Hefei as the country’s first “National Science and Technology Innovation Pilot City”, and in February 2017, the Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center was officially unveiled as the country’s second of its kind.
Today, Hefei is home to more than 20 well-equipped key laboratories or research centers. These include big science facilities such as the EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) device and auxiliary heating systems, and the Steady High Magnet Field Facility. Hefei’s GDP has risen 20-fold in the past 20 years, the China Daily reports.
