On Water-Resistant Materials Production! How Can Traditional Manufacturing Industry Transform and Upgrade? Joint Announcement by Eight Ministries: Do It This Way!

All provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under central government, planned cities, Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, relevant central enterprises, ministries and commissions including the NDRC, Ministry of Education (Department/Bureau), Ministry of Finance (Department/Bureau), PBOC Shanghai Head Office, provincial, autonomous regional, municipal and planned city branches, SAT provincial, autonomous regional, municipal and planned city bureaus, CSRC local branches, CSDC local regulatory offices, and various sub-organizations of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Relevant central enterprises:

Traditional manufacturing is the backbone of China’s industrial system and the foundation of modernized industrial systems. Accelerating its transformation and upgrading is a strategic choice to proactively respond to new technological revolutions and industrial changes, a crucial measure to enhance supply chain resilience and security, a necessary requirement for advancing new-type industrialization and building a strong manufacturing nation, and vital for constructing a complete modernized industrial system. To accelerate this transformation, the following measures are proposed.

I. Basic Requirements and Overall Goals

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, China has established a world-leading, most comprehensive, fully-systematic, and highly competitive industrial advantage in manufacturing. It has become a critical carrier for technological innovation outcomes, a major channel for attracting investment, a key source of tax revenue, and a leading domain for international trade—providing strong support against external pressures and global crises, and making significant contributions to stable economic growth. Traditional industries such as chemical engineering, steel, nonferrous metals, construction materials, machinery, automobiles, light industry, and textiles account for nearly 80% of total manufacturing output, serving as the essential foundation supporting national economic development and people’s livelihood needs. At the same time, challenges remain: 'large but not strong,' 'comprehensive but not refined.' Low-end supply excess coexists with high-end supply shortage; weak innovation capacity, inadequate industrial foundations, tight resource constraints, rising input costs, and significant competitive pressure require accelerating quality transformation, efficiency transformation, and power transformation to achieve upgrading.

Accelerating the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing must be guided by the thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era, deeply implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the CPC, earnestly carry out the nationwide campaign for new-style industrialization, uphold steady progress amid stability, comprehensively, accurately, and fully embrace new development concepts, accelerate building a new development pattern, promote coordinated development and security, adhere to market-led guidance and government policy direction, insist on innovation-driven and systematic advancement, prioritize breakthroughs followed by consolidation, ensure protection while maintaining pressure. Implement the manufacturing technology upgrade project, speed up equipment renewal, process upgrades, digital empowerment, and management innovation, pushing traditional manufacturing toward high-end, intelligent, green, and integrated directions to improve quality and efficiency, and accelerate high-quality development.

By 2027, China’s traditional manufacturing industry will significantly advance toward high-end, intelligent, green, and integrated development, effectively supporting the stability of industrial structure while strengthening its global position and competitive edge in industrial division. Industrial enterprises will see over 90% adoption of digital R&D design tools and key process control automation rates exceeding 70%. Industrial energy efficiency and carbon emission intensity will continue to decline. Per-unit added value water consumption will drop by about 13% compared to 2023, and the comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste will exceed 57%.

II. Drive Innovation-Driven Development and Accelerate Value Chain Upgrading

(1) Accelerate the popularization and application of advanced technologies. Encourage enterprises to take the lead in collaboration with universities and research institutes to build R&D institutions, increase R&D investment, and raise the conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements. Optimize national-level innovation platforms in manufacturing fields such as manufacturing innovation centers, industrial innovation centers, and national engineering research centers. Focus on key areas of traditional manufacturing to conduct joint R&D and industrial application pilots for critical common technologies. Improve mechanisms for sharing technological achievement information and results. Establish a list of priority applications for advanced technology conversion, and build pilot and demonstration platforms for technology integration, standardization, and industrialization.

(2) Continuously optimize industrial structures. Promote long-term advantages in advantageous sectors, extend and strengthen the industrial chain, reinforce innovation through new technologies and products, improve industrial ecosystems, and enhance overall industrial competitiveness. Support deep specialization in traditional manufacturing sectors, expand new markets, foster new industries. Strengthen the achievement of 'decarbonization' goals, legally and compliantly phase out outdated production capacity, resolutely avoid high-energy, high-emission, low-water-use projects. Improve management systems for high-energy, high-emission, low-water-use projects, scientifically plan project management lists, and prevent one-size-fits-all industrial cuts.

(3) Deepen implementation of foundational reconstruction projects. Support enterprises focusing on key components, core parts, fundamental materials, basic software, foundational processes, and industrial technology to overcome bottlenecks and accelerate industrialization applications. Enhance the foundational support system for traditional manufacturing. Deepen the 'one dragon' application of key products and processes, strengthen demand and scenario-driven innovation, and promote synergistic development between complete systems (platforms) and foundational products and technologies. Support enterprises adopting first-of-a-kind (pilot) equipment, bulk materials, and initial software versions for technological upgrades, and expand the market for innovative product applications.

(4) Vigorously enhance product variety and quality. Focus on upgrading consumption demands and environmental sustainability, actively develop smart home appliances, green buildings, artistic craftsmanship, elderly care products, children's goods, and other new products. Promote balanced supply-demand interactions, increase high-end product offerings, accelerate product iteration and upgrades, and systematically build a national brand portfolio. Implement the 'Sustainable Quality Project,' promote enterprise-wide, comprehensive, advanced quality management systems, improve quality management capabilities, and comprehensively elevate product quality. Accelerate the construction of corporate brands, industrial brands, and regional brands, protect trademark rights, and cultivate a batch of internationally competitive 'Made in China' high-end brands. Push forward the upgrading of industry standards and enterprise technical renovation standards, using advanced standards systems to drive quality improvement and product upgrading.

III. Accelerate Digital Empowerment and Fully Promote Intelligent Manufacturing

(5) Vigorously promote enterprise digital transformation and networked collaboration. Tailor solutions to different industrial characteristics and requirements, accelerate the deep integration of artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, 5G, IoT, and other information technologies across all stages of manufacturing. Support digital transformation of production equipment, widely apply advanced sensors and intelligent control devices, and accelerate the replacement of smart equipment and software. Promote digital workshops and intelligent factories through site-based models, explore intelligent design, production, management, and service models, and establish a number of typical benchmark cases. Accelerate digital transformation in SMEs, piloting and testing digital networking in small and medium-sized enterprises. Improve standards systems for intelligent manufacturing, digital twin, and industrial internet, speed up digital transformation and intelligent manufacturing, enhance evaluation and certification public services, strengthen industrial control system and data security protection, and build a healthy development ecosystem.

(6) Promote supply chain digitalization and collaborative synergy. Encourage leading enterprises to share solutions and toolkits, drive full-chain digital transformation, and strengthen supply chain digital management and resource sharing. Promote industrial internet and key industrial chains to develop 'networked collaboration,' fully leverage the role of industrial internet identification systems and platforms, support the construction of data-driven, precise matching, and trusted collaborative models, and launch applications in collaborative procurement, joint manufacturing, synchronized distribution, and product traceability. Build smart industrial supply chains. Support the construction of 'industrial brains' in key industries, aggregate industry data resources, expand shared application scenarios, and serve the transformation and upgrading of entire industries and governance capability enhancement.

(7) Promote the upgrading of industrial parks and clusters. Drive the upgrade of national high-tech zones and technology industrial parks with digital infrastructure, build public service platforms, explore shared manufacturing models, and implement comprehensive digital transformation. Lead with national leading manufacturing clusters, promote digital transformation of industrial clusters, promote online resource allocation, energy efficiency optimization, and industrial chain collaboration, enhancing overall competitiveness. Explore establishing district-level AI data processing centers to provide large-scale data processing, generative AI tool development, and other services, promoting digital empowerment of traditional manufacturing. Explore organizational forms like platformization and networking to develop cross-physical boundary virtual industrial parks and clusters, building a new industrial ecosystem combining reality and virtuality.

IV. Strengthen Green and Low-Carbon Development and Deeply Implement Energy-Saving and Carbon-Reduction Renovation

(8) Implement carbon peak initiatives in key sectors. Mandate the implementation of carbon peak action plans in key industries such as manufacturing, chemicals, and construction materials. Improve industrial energy-saving management systems and promote energy-saving and carbon-reduction technology renovations. Conduct assessments on the implementation status of energy substitution policies, improve inter-regional energy substitution mechanisms, and provide appropriate policy support for high-efficiency, low-emission technology renovation projects. Actively develop and apply green low-carbon materials based on non-fossil raw materials. Establish a comprehensive carbon emission accounting system and a product carbon footprint management system. Launch pilot programs for pollution reduction, carbon capture, storage, and comprehensive utilization. Proceed orderly with coal-to-gas substitution in key industries, rationally guide industrial gas demand growth, and increase the proportion of clean electricity and gas in final industrial energy use.

(9) Improve green manufacturing and service systems. Guide enterprises to implement green transformation, vigorously promote green design, develop and popularize green products, and build green factories, green industrial parks, and green supply chains. Revise and formulate standards for low-carbon, energy-saving, water-saving, resource recycling, and green manufacturing. Promote resource conservation and rational material usage. Cultivate green service organizations to provide advisory, R&D design, integrated application, operation management, certification, training, and other services. Develop energy-saving and water-saving, advanced environmental protection, resource recycling, and remanufacturing equipment. Strengthen green manufacturing benchmarking leadership and drive more enterprises to undergo green transformation.

(10) Promote efficient circular resource utilization. Develop targeted strategies for resource-intensive industries, cultivate model bases and pilot enterprises for efficient development of mineral resources, strengthen comprehensive utilization of co-products, and improve primary resource utilization levels. Actively promote circular production models, vigorously develop recycled iron, recycled non-ferrous metals, recycled batteries, recycled household appliances, and textile recycling industries. Advance high-value circular utilization of secondary resources. Promote standardized and intensive comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste in coal gangue, fly ash, etc., exploring new models in industrial solid waste concentration zones, coal-fired power production areas, and raw material base clusters. Promote industrial wastewater recycling and improve water resource collection and conservation levels.

(11) Strengthen the fundamental safety of key industries. Guide enterprises to transform hazardous, toxic, and high-temperature production environments, improve workplace adaptability, and enhance safety conditions through technological upgrades. Deepen the 'Industrial Internet + Safety Production' initiative, strengthening capabilities in safety monitoring, early warning, response, and assessment. Increase deployment of emergency response equipment in key areas, and implement 'robot replacement, automation reduction' in high-risk industries such as mining. Support the comprehensive technological renovation of old equipment in chemical plants, train smart industrial parks, and orderly promote the 'clean-up and rectification' of hazardous chemical enterprises along the Yangtze River and other key economic belts.

V. Promote Industrial Synergy and Foster New Industries and Models

(12) Promote industrial convergence and collaborative development. Drive the coordinated development of industries such as chemical engineering, steel, non-ferrous metals, construction materials, and power. Popularize models like steel-chemical integration, silicon-coking aggregation, and resource-sharing. Promote inter-industry connectivity, mutual supply, and seamless collaboration between upstream and downstream sectors, achieving hierarchical resource utilization and closed-loop industrial cycles. Vigorously develop biomanufacturing, enhance core technology innovation in seed breeding, high-performance catalysts, and other foundational technologies, improve the level of separation purification and other advanced equipment, and accelerate the integration and application of biotechnology in food, medicine, and chemical industries. Support applications of new functional fibers in healthcare and new energy fields. Build cross-industry exchange platforms, deeply tap demand pain points, encourage enterprises to explore cross-industry applications of their technologies and products, expand the value space of tech products, and create a series of exemplary cases.

(13) Develop service-oriented manufacturing. Promote deep integration between traditional manufacturing and modern service industries, fostering new models such as customized manufacturing, shared manufacturing, lifecycle management, and turnkey contracting. Drive the deep integration of industrial design and traditional manufacturing, promote optimization and upgrading of design, establish national-level industrial design centers, research institutes, and industry-specific specialized creative parks. Promote the digitalization, intelligence, and precision development of logistics services, enhance inspection and testing capabilities in critical equipment, new materials, and other fields, cultivate innovative financial services for manufacturing, and improve support for the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing.

(14) Continuously optimize industrial layout. Support the transformation and development of old industrial bases, accelerate industrial structural adjustments, and nurture new momentum for industrial growth. Based on the guiding opinions on orderly relocation of manufacturing and the manufacturing relocation development roadmap, fully leverage local resource endowments and industrial foundation advantages, integrate industrial chain coordination needs, and reasonably guide industrial relocation. Enhance relocation capacity and differentiate regional production strengths. Cultivate a group of leading manufacturing clusters in advantageous sectors, high-market-competition SME specialty clusters. Support cooperation under the 'Belt and Road Initiative' and the establishment of overseas cooperation zones for Chinese SMEs, promoting the joint export of technology, equipment, standards, and services.

VI. Increase Policy Support and Create a Favorable Development Environment

(15) Strengthen organizational leadership. Under the leadership of the National Leading Group for Building a Manufacturing Powerhouse, strengthen strategic planning, unified coordination, and research on major issues. Accelerate the implementation of major tasks and policies. Ensure joint efforts among all regions and departments, guide industry and region-specific implementation plans, refine work measures, release policy packages, and seize the promotion of implementation. Form a batch of excellent examples and typical experiences. Fully leverage the role of industry associations and other intermediary organizations to strengthen policy dissemination, industry monitoring, decision-making support, and enterprise services.

(16) Enhance financial support. Increase financial support for technological renovation in manufacturing, prioritizing funding for the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing industries. Implement policies to promote digital transformation, intelligent manufacturing, green transformation, and integrated upgrading. Implement tax incentives and preferential policies for manufacturing enterprises participating in high-tech firms and specialized, refined, unique, and innovative SMEs. Enforce tax relief policies for enterprises purchasing equipment used for environmental protection, energy saving, water saving, and safe production. Guide enterprises to increase investment in hardware and software equipment.

(17) Strengthen financial services. Fully utilize existing related funds, providing preferential interest rate financing support for key projects in the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing that meet criteria. Leverage the policy impact of national industrial funds, industrial technology upgrade guidance plans, and other instruments to guide financial institutions to increase support for the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing according to market and legal principles. Optimize relevant financial products and services. Encourage industrial investment funds to increase investment in traditional manufacturing equity. Promote multi-tier capital market functions, supporting qualified traditional manufacturing enterprises to raise funds through stocks, bonds, and other methods for technological upgrades or increased R&D investment, achieving transformation and upgrading via M&A.

(18) Expand talent supply. Optimize vocational education, senior professional, and technician training systems, comprehensively implement China-specific talent cultivation models. Implement the 'Manufacturing Talent Support Program,' promote the construction of new engineering schools, modern industrial colleges, and specialized training institutions. Establish 'National Model Practice Bases for Engineering Technicians,' cultivating a batch of digital transformation talents, advanced manufacturing technology experts, foundational process engineers, and teams with breakthrough innovation capabilities and the ability to solve complex engineering problems.