Fresh priorities define 'future industries'

"New productive forces" has become China's newest buzz-phrase ever since it was frequently mentioned by the Chinese leadership and the authorities concerned like local governments in their new-year economic growth plans.

Compared with traditional productive tools that are driven by elements like labor, land and capital, new productive forces refer to a new form of productive forces that are led by technological innovation and new elements like data.

At a time when China's economy has been rattled by the ailing property market, decreasing private investment and aging population — all of which are traditional productive tools — as well as rising external geopolitical tensions, new productive forces could help sharpen focus on the ways and means of finding economic momentum, industry experts said.

They said they believe that China's emphasis on new productive forces can accelerate the development of future-oriented industries and key technologies, and thereby promote modern industrial development and help advance the world's second-largest economy on the global value chain.

In a study session of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, presided by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Xi emphasized that developing new productive forces is an endogenous requirement and a pivot of high-quality development, and that efforts should be kept up to promote innovation and faster development of new productive forces.

Xi pointed out that scientific and technological innovation can generate new industries, new models and new momentum, and is the core element for developing new productive forces.

It is a must to strengthen scientific and technological innovation, especially original and disruptive innovations, accelerate the efforts to build high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology, and do a good job in making breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields, so that original and disruptive scientific and technological innovations can emerge one after another, and foster more momentum for the development of new productive forces, Xi said.

Wei Jianguo, former vice-minister of commerce, said: "If China wants to follow the path of rapid development, the country must plan ahead on new productive forces to seize the opportunity."

Wei, who is also vice-chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, predicted that new productive forces will be key to competition for global economies over the next five to 10 years.

"The top priority is to establish as soon as possible a unified and open technology factor market with orderly competition, complete systems and sound governance," Wei said.

Wei further said the biggest difference between traditional productive forces and new productive forces is that the latter get rid of the need to make investment of a large amount of resources; instead, they place more emphasis on the leading role of scientific and technological innovation, which mainly includes strategic emerging industries and future-oriented industries.

Huang Qifan, former mayor of Chongqing, expressed similar views. He said at a conference focused on new productive forces in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, in December that China's biggest choke point in modernizing its economy lies in limitations in developing productive services.