At a State Council Information Office press conference on August 26th, officials detailed the strategy for fully executing the 15th Five-Year Plan and accelerating the modernization of industry. The focus will be on building a modern industrial system anchored by advanced manufacturing, with a clear emphasis on six key priorities.

The first priority is optimizing the industrial structure by coordinating the upgrade of traditional sectors, the growth of emerging industries, and the forward-looking layout of future industries. This includes nurturing new pillar industries such as integrated circuits, aerospace, biomedicine, low-altitude economy, new energy storage, and intelligent robots. Simultaneously, future industries like quantum technology, biological manufacturing, hydrogen and fusion energy, brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence, and 6G are being positioned to become new economic growth drivers.

Strengthening industrial innovation is another critical task. Efforts will be made to enhance original innovation and tackle key core technologies. The strategy involves improving national manufacturing innovation centers and pilot-scale testing platforms, directing innovation resources toward enterprises, and perfecting a business-led innovation ecosystem to boost the overall effectiveness of the manufacturing innovation system and continuously foster new quality productive forces.

To elevate advanced manufacturing capabilities, the plan calls for accelerating the development of next-generation intelligent manufacturing. This includes promoting the digital, intelligent, and networked transformation of manufacturing through "smart transformation, digital upgrade, and network connectivity," building smart factories and high-standard digital parks. Concurrently, the push for green and low-carbon industrial transformation continues, with efforts to achieve carbon peaking in the industrial sector. The deep integration of advanced manufacturing with modern services will also be promoted, cultivating new models like platform-based design and personalized customization.

Cultivating excellent enterprises is a key focus. The strategy entails improving the tiered cultivation system for businesses, expanding specialized and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, and creating more "little giant" firms and manufacturing champions in single product categories. The aim is to deepen the integration of large and small enterprises, fostering collaborative innovation across industry chains. In the information and communication sector, the goal is to accelerate planning for next-generation communication and computing networks, promote the widespread adoption of 5G and industrial internet in key industries, advance 6G R&D, and strengthen network and data security capabilities. Improving industrial governance will involve refining legal frameworks, advancing legislation in telecommunications and road vehicles, and strengthening efforts against telecom and online fraud.

During this critical period for laying the groundwork for basic socialist modernization, the focus remains on developing advanced manufacturing and maintaining its reasonable share of the economy. Deputy Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin emphasized that the 15th Five-Year Plan period will require significant effort in four areas. The first is expanding value space, which means competing on quality, advancing process technologies, and improving product standards. This involves fostering innovative allocation of production factors, pushing manufacturing toward the higher-value ends of the "smiling curve," and improving total factor productivity.

The second area is cultivating growth drivers. This will be achieved by deeply integrating technological innovation with industrial innovation and developing new quality productive forces tailored to local conditions. The approach is to let industry define the problems and technology find the answers, strengthening platforms like public technology service and pilot testing to accelerate the path from basic research to commercial application. Thirdly, accelerating industrial upgrading will involve pushing forward with high-end, intelligent, and green manufacturing, while continuously transforming traditional industries. These traditional sectors remain the foundation of manufacturing and fertile ground for new quality productive forces. The focus will be on strengthening the "AI + Manufacturing" initiative, applying new-generation information technology throughout all industrial chains, and promoting green low-carbon development actions and comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste. Finally, creating a favorable ecosystem requires the Ministry to act as a supportive "home" for businesses, deepening reforms, and building a strong industrial environment. This includes strengthening legislative research in emerging fields like the digital economy and AI, improving the mandatory standards system, intensifying efforts to clear overdue payments to businesses, and implementing special actions to reduce enterprise burdens.

Yao Jun, Director of the Planning Department, highlighted actions to expand emerging industries and create new pillar sectors. The strategy involves four key measures. First, tackling technological challenges to accelerate breakthroughs in emerging fields. This means advancing major technical equipment projects and industrial foundation projects, focusing on strategic areas and weak links in supply chains, and taking extraordinary measures to achieve decisive breakthroughs in critical core technologies for integrated circuits, machine tools, high-end instruments, basic and industrial software, advanced materials, and biological manufacturing. Second, strengthening platform development to accelerate the growth of emerging industry parks and enterprises. National demonstration bases for emerging industries will be established, focusing on sectors like next-generation IT, new energy, new materials, intelligent connected new energy vehicles, robotics, biomedicine, high-end equipment, and aerospace. The goal is to cultivate around 100 model parks by 2035 that play a radiating and leading role in cluster development, collaborative innovation, and ecological optimization. Third, cultivating application scenarios to promote large-scale adoption of new technologies, products, and scenarios. This involves implementing demonstration applications for new manufacturing technologies and launching major scenarios like "5G+", "AI+", "Robot+", "Industrial Internet+", and "Beidou+", with mechanisms for selecting landmark projects and matching supply with demand. Fourth, optimizing the ecosystem to accelerate the agglomeration of resources toward emerging industries. The plan includes advancing standardization projects, implementing a "technology-industry-finance integration" special initiative, building national bases for training outstanding engineers, and developing service-oriented manufacturing and production services to support the growth of emerging industries.