China will give fresh impetus to the Made in China 2025 strategy by implementing five key projects and bringing to life a slew of national innovation demonstration zones, according to the country's top regulator for industrial development.

The pledge accords with General Secretary Xi Jinping's call to "move Chinese industries up to the medium-high end of the global value chain, and foster a number of world-class advanced manufacturing clusters".

Beijing has completed the top-level design of the grand plan, which is the first decade of a program of actions to marshal the country's high-end manufacturing horsepower, said Miao Wei, minister of industry and information technology.

To shore up the ambition, continued efforts will be devoted to the setting up of a national center for manufacturing innovation, intelligent manufacturing, creation of a strong industrial base, green manufacturing and high-end equipment innovation, Miao said on the sidelines of the 19th CPC National Congress.

"In the past two years, China has seen the establishment of the likes of National Power Battery Innovation and 35 provincial-level manufacturing innovation centers, which greatly boosted the country's prowess in core technological breakthroughs," he said.

The goal to move up the industrial value chain is gaining substantial steam, with the ministry unveiling a total of 97 intelligent manufacturing pilot projects on Oct 23.

They covered a wide range of high-tech industries such as robotics and vehicles and involved companies like Beiqi Foton Motor Co and Lepu Medical Technology (Beijing) Co.

Such endeavors are set to transform the traditional manufacturing sector into an open and digitally linked manufacturing platform, with networks of hardware suppliers, developers, designers and entrepreneurs, says Denis Depoux, Asia deputy president of consultancy Roland Berger.

"For instance, factories can deliver manufacturing as a service to small and medium-sized enterprises and even to individual customers," he says.

Meanwhile, China will continue to push ahead with the construction of 31 national demonstration zones, which will be in 12 cities including Ningbo and four city clusters in regions such as southern Jiangsu province, Miao said.

The minister also said China is on pace to pioneer a number of key technology upgrade projects, without specifying, and to constantly optimize the environment for the manufacturing sector.

"Foreign and Chinese enterprises will continue to be treated equally under the initiative," he said, adding that cooperation mechanisms have been established on policy integration, standard setting and demonstration zone building with countries including the United States and Germany.

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(China Daily European Weekly 10/27/2017 page25)