Recently, the National Advanced Manufacturing Conference and the World Manufacturing Convention were held one after another.

These two major gatherings brought manufacturing into the spotlight and made the continued expansion and strengthening of advanced manufacturing a new consensus for development.

During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, how can advanced manufacturing continue to grow stronger and larger? The key lies in building on existing foundations, closely following the direction of industrial transformation, and further converting scale advantages and systemic advantages into innovation advantages, competitive advantages, and development advantages.

Manufacturing is the foundation of a nation and the cornerstone of a strong country, and advanced manufacturing is an important pillar of the real economy.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's advanced manufacturing sector has continued to develop and expand.

The value added of manufacturing has ranked first globally for 16 consecutive years, accounting for nearly 30% of the global total.

Leading fields such as photovoltaics, communications, high-speed rail, and shipbuilding have achieved global leadership, while robotics, artificial intelligence, and innovative drugs are flourishing.

New quality productive forces are gaining momentum, and advanced manufacturing is surging with vitality.

However, it must also be noted that China still faces bottlenecks in some key core technologies, which is an urgent issue that must be resolved in developing advanced manufacturing.

Entering the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, continuing to expand and strengthen advanced manufacturing cannot be simply understood as expanding production capacity and increasing quantity.

It is more important to adhere to intelligent, green, and integrated development and to promote the continuous improvement of the quality and efficiency of manufacturing development.

Innovation is the primary driving force for making advanced manufacturing stronger and larger.

Today's manufacturing competition is increasingly reflected in the contest of scientific and technological innovation capabilities, the efficiency of transforming achievements, and industrial organization capabilities.

It is necessary to adhere to industrial demand as the guide for scientific and technological breakthroughs, strengthen the dominant position of enterprises in innovation, promote the deep integration of the innovation chain, industrial chain, capital chain, and talent chain, and enable more scientific research achievements to move from the laboratory to the production line, from samples to products, and from products to industries.

In particular, new technologies such as artificial intelligence should be better embedded in the entire process of research and development, design, production and manufacturing, business management, and service support, driving overall and systemic transformation of the manufacturing sector.

Continuing to expand and strengthen advanced manufacturing cannot rely on a few enterprises advancing alone; it also depends on industrial chain coordination and cluster development.

Whether it is the C919 large passenger aircraft, domestically produced large cruise ships, or new energy vehicles and industrial robots, none of these is the solo performance of a single company.

Behind them is the result of coordinated cooperation among numerous links including materials, equipment, software, components, and services.

It is necessary to continuously enhance industrial foundational capabilities, cultivate advanced manufacturing clusters, promote the integrated development of large, medium, and small enterprises, and encourage upstream and downstream enterprises to strengthen cooperation in technology, standards, talent, and application scenarios, forming more industrial ecosystems led by "chain leaders" and supported by specialized and sophisticated enterprises.

Continuing to expand and strengthen advanced manufacturing also requires allocating resources and expanding space on a larger scale.

China's ultra-large-scale market provides rich application scenarios for new technologies and new products and also creates conditions for enterprises to continuously iterate and innovate.

It is necessary to create new demand with high-quality supply and win domestic and international markets with high-quality products and services.

At the same time, it is necessary to steadily expand openness and cooperation in manufacturing, encourage multinational enterprises to deeply participate in China's innovation and industrial development, and enhance the level of the industry through open competition.

Moving from "Made in China" to "Innovated in China" is becoming an important manifestation of China's manufacturing industry advancing to a higher stage.

Turning the blueprint into reality is inseparable from a better combination of a proactive government and an effective market.

On the one hand, it is necessary to improve policy support, public services, the standards system, and factor guarantees around the concerns of enterprises, and continuously optimize a market environment of fair competition.

On the other hand, it is necessary to respect the dominant position of enterprises, fully leverage the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, and allow enterprises with real technology, markets, and potential to stand out.

The "15th Five-Year Plan" period is an important period for building a modern industrial system and accelerating the development of new quality productive forces.

By continuing to expand and strengthen advanced manufacturing and consolidating and strengthening the foundation of the real economy, the Chinese economy will be able to enjoy more solid industrial support and more abundant development momentum, continuously opening up new prospects on the new journey of advancing Chinese-style modernization.

[Wang Su, Director of the Information Research Office of the Institute of New Industrialization, China Center for Information Industry Development (Research Center for New Industrialization of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology), and columnist for China Economic Net]