New industries

Feng Kejin, director of the APDEIT, said the number of industrial enterprises with at least 20 million yuan in annual sales revenue each reached a record high of 22,000. The province's total industrial added value reached 1.4 trillion yuan — 10th in the country, confirming that Anhui has joined the top league of China's major industrial provinces.

Besides expanding its automobile sector, Anhui is building industrial clusters of advanced photovoltaic and new energy storage with global influence, Feng said, noting its PV manufacturing industry's 2023 revenue was 296.74 billion yuan — third in the country.

Anhui's output of PV glass accounts for more than half of the country's total while its output of inverters takes up one-third, Feng said.

Anhui is also enhancing the high-quality development of a new generation of information technology, with its production capacity of display panels accounting for about 17 percent of the country's total and 10 percent of the world's total, he said.

Leaders' call

Manufacturing is the foundation of the national economy. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the added value of China's manufacturing sector surpassed that of the United States for the first time in 2010, making China the largest manufacturing country in the world.

Liang Yanshun, Party secretary of Anhui, said the province must persist in taking industry as the foundation and expand new quality productive forces.

He said while boosting strategic emerging industrial clusters and creating more future industry pilot areas, the province should enhance Anhui manufacturers' efforts to go global, and impress those attendees with the annual World Manufacturing Convention in the city this month.

Anhui Governor Wang Qingxian stressed it is vital for the province to promote the high-end, intelligent and green development of its manufacturing sector, in addition to speeding up the internationalization level of the convention.

The province should help local automobile manufacturers become stronger, bigger and world-class enterprises, and elevate the emerging industry clusters as well as the layout of future industries, he said.

The advanced PV and new energy storage industry clusters should also be bolstered, and the hydrogen energy industry, and the new materials industries, which enjoy certain advantages, should be expanded, he stressed.

By focusing on the 10 new emerging industries, Anhui should vigorously attract Fortune Global 500 companies, top 100 Chinese manufacturing companies and unicorns as cooperative partners, while boosting foreign investment in its manufacturing sector, Wang said.

Approved by the State Council, China's Cabinet, the 2024 World Manufacturing Convention will be held in Hefei between Sept 20 and 23. This year's theme is "Intelligent Manufacturing for a Better Future".