The epidemic situation is a crisis for most enterprises. On the seventh day of the Spring Festival alone, the box office loss of films is 7 billion, the loss of catering retail is 500 billion, and the loss of tourism market is 500 billion. The direct economic loss of these three industries alone exceeds 1 trillion. This trillion yuan accounted for 4.6% of GDP in the first quarter of 2019, and its impact on the manufacturing industry should not be underestimated.
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia and its global spread not only disturb the economic activities of the world, but also pose a considerable threat to the economic development prospects of the world.
The global supply chain has evolved from “the decline of supply and demand in Chinese market” at the beginning of the outbreak of the epidemic to “the shortage of supply in the world”. Can China’s manufacturing industry effectively resolve the negative impact of the epidemic?
The epidemic will probably reshape the global supply network to a certain extent, posing new challenges to China’s manufacturing industry. If properly handled, China’s manufacturing industry will be able to achieve a second breakthrough after joining the international division of labor system, comprehensively improve the industrial manufacturing capacity and resistance to exogenous shocks, and truly realize the high-quality development of manufacturing industry. To correctly deal with the epidemic and the ensuing supply chain impact, China’s domestic industry and policy circles need to work together to complete the following three changes.
1. From “overcapacity” to “flexible capacity”. One of the main problems facing China’s manufacturing industry is the structural problem of overcapacity in traditional manufacturing industry and relatively insufficient capacity in high-tech manufacturing industry. After the outbreak of the epidemic, some manufacturing enterprises realized the transfer of anti epidemic materials such as masks and protective clothing, made full use of the production capacity to ensure the effective supply of domestic medical products, and successfully turned to export after the domestic epidemic was controlled. By maintaining a relatively reasonable total capacity and accelerating Capacity Upgrading and innovation, we can increase the flexibility of China’s economy in the face of exogenous shocks, and promote the high-quality development of China’s manufacturing industry.
2. From “made in China” to “made in China”. One of the major impacts of the epidemic on the global supply chain is the production disruption caused by short-term labor shortage in countries and regions with severe epidemic. In order to reduce the impact of labor shortage on industrial production, we need to further increase the investment in industrial informatization and digitization, and increase the proportion of “intelligent manufacturing” in industrial production to maintain the effective supply in case of crisis. In this process, the “new infrastructure” represented by 5g, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet and Internet of things will play a very important role.
3. Change from “world factory” to “Chinese craft”. The label of “world factory” in China’s manufacturing industry has a long history, and a large number of goods produced in China have always been regarded as the representative of cheap and beautiful crops. However, in some key areas of industrial manufacturing, such as semiconductor materials and equipment manufacturing, there is still a big gap between China and the realization of independent production. In order to effectively solve the problem of “sticking neck” restricting industrial development, on the one hand, we need to increase investment in the core technology of industrial production, on the other hand, we need to further strengthen international cooperation in the field of technology. In these two tasks, the state needs to give long-term support to relevant industries, enterprises and research institutions, maintain strategic patience, gradually improve China’s basic scientific research system and achievement transformation system, and truly improve the technological level of China’s manufacturing industry.
Post time: Mar-10-2021
