With its old economic-growth engines sputtering or stalled, China should further empower its world-leading manufacturing sector, a globally recognised economist has urged in Davos.
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Manufacturing is key to the competitiveness of China’s economy, and the next step should be focusing on moving up the value chain, said Zhu Min, a former deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
“Now as we try to digitise manufacturing, in the next 20 years, we’ll make sure ‘made in China’ means cheap, good and hi-tech,” said Zhu, who is also a former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
Long perceived as the so-called world’s factory, China has a manufacturing sector that currently accounts for around 30 per cent of the global output. The overall scale of the country’s manufacturing industry has been the world’s largest for 15 consecutive years.
The rapid growth, however, has spurred backlash from other economies, including those of the United States and Europe, where politicians have accused China of weakening their own manufacturing sectors.
US President Donald Trump, who on Monday returned to the White House for the second term, has been a major promoter of such a narrative, claiming that China is stealing American manufacturing jobs.
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