China - Manufacturing, Industry, Exports (2024)

The development of industry has been given considerable attention since the advent of the communist regime. Overall industrial output often has grown at an annual rate of more than 10 percent, and China’s industrial workforce probably exceeds the combined total for all other developing countries. Industry has surpassed all other sectors in economic growth and degree of modernization. Most heavy industries and products deemed to be of national strategic importance remain state-owned, but an increasing proportion of lighter and consumer-oriented manufacturing firms are privately held or are private-state joint ventures.

Among the various manufacturing branches, the metallurgical and machine-building industries have received high priority. These two branches alone now account for about two-fifths of the total gross value of industrial output. In these, as in most other areas of state-owned industry, however, innovation has generally suffered at the hands of a system that has rewarded increases in gross output rather than improvements in variety and quality. China, therefore, still imports significant quantities of specialized steels. Much of the country’s steel output comes from a small number of producing centres, the largest being Anshan in Liaoning.

The principal preoccupation of authorities in chemical and petrochemical manufacturing is to expand the output of chemical fertilizers, plastics, and synthetic fibres. The growth of this industry has placed China among the world’s leading producers of nitrogenous fertilizers. In the consumer goods sector the main emphasis is on textiles, clothing, shoes, processed foods, and toys, all of which also form an important part of China’s exports. Textile production, a rapidly growing proportion of which consists of synthetics, continues to be important, but less so than before. The industry tends to be scattered throughout the country, but there are a number of important textile centres, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Harbin.

The pace of industrialization quickened and diversified after 1990. Notable were the development of automobile, aircraft, and aerospace manufacturing. In addition, China expanded rapidly into the production of electronics, semiconductors, software, and precision equipment, often in conjunction with foreign firms.

Overall, the distribution of industry has remained uneven, despite serious efforts from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s to build up manufacturing in the interior at the cost of the major cities on the east coast. While percentage growth of industry in the interior provinces generally greatly exceeded that of the coastal areas, the far larger initial industrial base of the latter meant that a few coastal regions have continued to dominate China’s industrial economy. The establishment of special economic zones in coastal areas only enhanced this disparity. Thus, Shanghai alone produces about 10 percent of China’s gross value of industrial output, and the east coast accounts for about 60 percent of the national manufacturing output.

Finance

China’s financial institutions are owned by the state. The principal instruments of fiscal and financial control are the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance, both subject to the authority of the State Council. The People’s Bank, which replaced the Central Bank of China in 1950 and gradually took over private banks, fulfills many of the functions of Western central and commercial banks. It issues the renminbi (yuan; the national currency), controls circulation, and plays an important role in disbursing budgetary expenditures. Furthermore, it handles the accounts, payments, and receipts of government organizations and other bodies, which enables it to exercise detailed supervision over their financial and general performance in the light of the state’s economic plans.

The People’s Bank is also responsible for foreign trade and other overseas transactions (including remittances by overseas Chinese), but these functions are exercised through the Bank of China, which maintains branch offices in a number of European and Asian countries.

Other important financial institutions include the China Construction Bank (formerly People’s Construction Bank of China), responsible for capitalizing a portion of overall investment and for providing capital funds for certain industrial and construction enterprises; the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which conducts ordinary commercial transactions and acts as a savings bank for the public; the Agricultural Bank of China, which serves the agricultural sector; and the China Investment Bank, which handles foreign investment. Many foreign banks maintain offices in China’s larger cities and the special economic zones. In 2005 the China Construction Bank became the first of China’s “big four” banks to be publicly traded. The Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank followed in step soon thereafter. When the last of the four, the Agricultural Bank of China, went public in 2010, it was the world’s largest initial public offering (IPO) to date.

China’s economic reforms greatly increased the economic role of the banking system. Whereas virtually all investment capital was previously provided on a grant basis in the state plan, policy has shifted to a loan basis through the various state financial institutions. More generally, increasing amounts of funds are made available through the banks for economic purposes. Enterprises and individuals can go to the banks to obtain loans outside the state plan, and this has proved to be a major source of financing both for new firms and for the expansion and modernization of older enterprises.

Foreign sources of capital also have become increasingly important. China has received loans from the World Bank and several United Nations programs, as well as from several countries (particularly Japan) and from commercial banks. Hong Kong and Taiwan have become major conduits for—as well as sources of—this investment. Stock exchanges have been operating at Shanghai and Shenzhen since 1990, and the government began allowing the first foreign firms to trade in the market in 2003.