At present, among the global general consumer products, from small handicrafts to household appliances such as refrigerators and televisions, a large number of products made in China appear in supermarkets around the world. Ranked 6th, attracting foreign direct investment of US$46.8 billion, ranking first among all countries and regions. World-renowned multinational retail groups such as Walmart, Carrefour, and Metro have been increasing their purchases in China in quantity and amount in recent years. Seeing so many achievements, some foreign journalists marveled: China has become the "world's factory"! Many domestic media, experts and some government officials also expressed "excited" and echoed that the real estate Winnie the Pooh toys and Jordan air-cushion sneakers have become processing plants for the global high-tech industry and have become the world's manufacturing base. China will serve as a highly profitable It rises through advancement and changes China's manufacturing landscape to a great extent. It seems that China has become the "world's factory" overnight. Faced with the noisy and rational thinking that "China is the world's factory", we might as well analyze it. The connotation of “the workshop of the world” People are no strangers to the term “the workshop of the world”. In the second half of the 19th century, the modern industry represented by the large-scale machine industry was the birthplace of the machine industry. It used strong ships and cannons to clear the way, used cheap goods to destroy the barriers of underdeveloped countries one after another, and attracted many countries to the British raw materials. Place of labor supply. Many bulk manufacturing goods can be produced more efficiently in the UK, are more competitive than in any other country, and have commercial, financial and political foreign competitors. British products once dominated the world trade pattern, monopolized the world's industrial production and sales markets, and led the trend of modern industrial development. The UK, which only accounts for about 2% of the world's population, has always controlled 1/3-1/2 of the world's industrial production and 1/5-1/4 of the world's trade. No other country can match the UK's universally recognized " "World Factory". In the 20th century, the British Empire was declining day by day, and the United States, Germany, Japan and other countries came to replace the United Kingdom as the industrial development experience of countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan. We can feel that the so-called "world factory" is a country's manufacturing industry. , has become the world market base. Its main characteristics are: a group of enterprises and a series of products occupy an important position in the world market. The production capacity, new product development, operation and management level, and market share of these enterprises and industries have become the vanguard of similar enterprises and industries in the world. Register The existence and development of a relatively large number of patents and a relative monopoly in the world market structure directly affects and even determines the supply and demand relationship, price trends and future development trends of the world market: Export trade with industrial manufactured products as the main body has become One of the major trading countries; it has always been at the forefront of the world in scientific and technological research and development, mastering various new manufacturing technologies, and leading the world's economic and technological trends. "World factory" can be understood from three aspects: First, within a period of time, the country's manufacturing production has a comparative advantage over other countries, and does not necessarily need to have absolute advantages, production scale and import and export countries. Second, unlike industrialization, it is a special phenomenon in a special country. Most developed countries have gone through the process of industrialization, but not every country can start the process of industrialization before other countries. This priority in time made it play the role of an early "world factory" in the early days of the world's industrial revolution. Third, its innovative products, or innovative production organization and management. In short, a country that becomes the "world's factory" should be able to drive the country's manufacturing productivity levels to continuously improve and improve its international competitiveness. Judging from historical experience, becoming a "world factory" must meet the following conditions: First, the comparative advantages of production factors. Factories are inseparable from labor and capital. Relatively cheap and wealthy labor, advanced technology and high-quality human resources, and required raw materials. Sufficient capital is crucial to becoming a "world factory". The second is the market environment that is open to the outside world. A country's economy is integrated into the world economy and participates in opening up. Opening up brings free flow of capital and technology. Only an open market for raw materials, industrial products and even technology can ensure the normal operation of the "world factory". The third is financial support. Finance is an important propeller for the development of the "world factory". With strong financial strength, the "world factory" will have a solid foundation and will be more likely to introduce new capabilities.

The "world factory" must be able to effectively promote technological innovation and transform technology into real productivity. Fifth, the government’s effective support policies. Policies such as encouraging production industry support will help establish China's status as a "world factory". 2. China’s manufacturing industry as a whole is not yet the “world’s factory.” It cannot be denied that China’s economic growth over the past 20 years has mainly relied on the growth of the manufacturing industry. Since the reform and opening up, the added value of China's manufacturing industry has maintained at more than 40% of total domestic production; half of fiscal revenue comes from manufacturing; manufacturing has absorbed a large number of employed people; manufacturing exports have maintained at nearly 3% since the 1990s. /4 of foreign exchange earnings. Whether looking at the proportion of manufacturing in GDP and fiscal revenue, or in terms of expanding employment and maintaining social stability, manufacturing is the main body and pillar. For a long period of time, China's economy will have to be driven by manufacturing. Although China has become a major manufacturing country, the problem is that the products produced in China have few varieties, low grades, low added value and low technical content. We believe that although the published white paper mentioned for the first time that China is becoming the "world's factory" and there are voices in the country who agree with it, China is not yet the "world's factory". It is too early to say that "China is the world's factory". The main reasons are as follows. ——China’s GDP has exceeded the trillion-dollar mark, and its economic aggregate has jumped to the sixth place in the world, but its proportion in the world’s economic aggregate is only a little more than 3%. With a total of US$500 billion, China has become the sixth largest trading country in the world, but its share of total world trade is only 3.2%. None of the Chinese companies that entered the Fortune 500 rankings in 2001 were truly manufacturing companies.

——China’s industrial output value is not large enough in the world. The output of industrial products is large, but the variety is small and the grade is low. The United States ranks first, accounting for more than 15% of the world's manufacturing industry, and China ranks fourth in the world, accounting for about 5%. Take steel production as an example. China's steel production is already the first in the world, but a large number of them are low-grade construction types. The steel trade deficit is large. The imported products are mainly high-end plates used in the IT industry and the automobile industry. In recent years, my country's integrated circuit trade deficit has reached more than 100 yuan. Although a large number of electronic products are produced and exported, their core components and high value-added integrated circuits mainly rely on imports. The main reason for the low grade of industrial products is that the intermediate capabilities are still poor and the ability of independent innovation is not strong. In the past 20 years, China's economy has developed significantly, but there are still not enough products that are truly original by Chinese companies. ——Labor-intensive products are bulk products exported by China. Our country has become a major clothing exporter in the world. However, our country’s clothing industry still lacks publicity in the international market. Many famous brand clothing in the world are produced by Chinese companies, but they are sold in the international market. It is a foreign trademark and a foreign brand. Although these export products are marked with Chinese origin, design, sales market and even raw materials, many of them belong to foreign customers. ——China’s traditional industries have broad development prospects. If we face China’s current situation squarely, proceed from national conditions, and seize the opportunities of industrial structural changes in Western countries, traditional industries have been impacted by the wave of high-tech development in recent years. Some companies with market advantages have The development and transformation of traditional industries have been neglected, while the development of high-tech has faced the misunderstanding of valuing business over scientific research, independent development, and manufacturing. ——Among China's top 200 foreign trade companies in 2001, the top three were three foreign trade agencies in Guangdong Province, with exports reaching US$6.2 billion, US$6.1 billion and US$3.76 billion respectively, accounting for the total exports of the top 200 enterprises in terms of export value. It is more than 1/5 of the value, and the manufacturing enterprise with the largest export value is just over 2 billion US dollars. What cannot be ignored is that 200 4% of foreign trade is realized through processing trade. Among the list of the top 200 foreign trade companies, more are branches of well-known multinational companies in China and large companies with international competitiveness. Since my country's manufacturing enterprises are often at the last link in the production chain of multinational companies, the current situation of low production added value needs to be changed. Measured according to the conditions of the "world factory", the most optimistic view is that my country is currently only in the field of assembly and processing industries that combine labor-intensive industries such as textiles, clothing, daily necessities and other light textile industries with technology-intensive ones, such as household appliances and computers. In the fields of parts and components, China has become one of the world's major manufacturing countries, but its core technologies are still under control and it does not yet have the scale and level to become a "world factory."

Three characteristics of foreign trade reflect that China is not yet the “world’s factory.” my country’s foreign trade development path is progressive and has achieved world-renowned achievements. It has the characteristics of vertical advancement, incremental reform, and pilot promotion. Similar to the reform and marketization process, the initial motivation for the reform of my country's foreign trade sector is to encourage exports in order to support the introduction of advanced technology and equipment and improve the scope of foreign trade enterprises, reduce the scope of mandatory foreign trade plans, expand local foreign trade autonomy, and enterprises Foreign exchange is retained, giving local areas opportunities to engage in foreign trade, etc. Having independent economic interests in the allocation of production factors, in order to attract more resources in competition with other places, the industrial structure is "lightened" based on the principle of comparative advantage of production factors. This represents the rapid development of processing trade with the characteristics of "short-term, flat and fast" and "both ends are outside". Many manufacturing industries in China are carried out in the form of processing trade, and the actual processing fees earned are very meager. In fact, among the huge exports, large importing countries are still concentrated in labor-intensive high-end products and natural resources, and do not have a monopoly on high value-added manufacturing. At the last link in the regional "production chain", China imports product components and is the last consumer of exports. As a result, China's share of developed markets has experienced explosive growth. This is actually a double statistics. As China's imports from its trading partners and China's foreign trade development and trading partners achieve a "win-win", consumers benefit from lower prices for Chinese goods, while the rest of the world benefits from the Chinese market The above characteristics of trade are far from the conditions of the "world factory". Although industrial manufactured products have replaced primary products in my country's export trade, accounting for more than 80% of the total, a large proportion of industrial manufactured products exports rely on imported parts and components and are engaged in assembly or processing with imported materials. Our country now leads the world in the production of several major household appliances. However, we must also realize that in terms of core technologies and components of household appliances, we should not just focus on what China produces, but also what products it trades with foreign countries, which are capital-intensive. Products do not mean capital. It is a huge economic entity with moderate openness. The export dependence and import dependence are about 20% each. This means that 80% of the domestic market demand depends on domestic production to support the development of foreign trade relations. However, the vast majority of automobiles, machinery, computers and electronic accessories will still be produced domestically, which does not reflect the "world factory". China's foreign trade currently has two shortcomings: first, the total amount is insufficient. According to statistics, the global sales of multinational retail groups that entered the world's top 500 last year accounted for less than 2% of their products. The proportion of Chinese products in the world market is far behind that of countries that once served as the so-called "world factories" Very far. Second, the technical level is insufficient and most of them are at the low end of the chain. About half of the export value is achieved through processing trade. At many procurement meetings, many multinational group buyers hold technical drawings in one hand and look for manufacturers alone. Last year, global DVD production was about 30 million units, of which China produced more than 14 million units. However, the key technology of DVD is not in the hands of China, so there are intellectual property disputes between China and foreign technology developers. China unswervingly implements the basic policy of opening up to the outside world, and its total foreign trade volume continues to rise. However, it is one of the few countries that has double-digit growth in both imports and exports. The overall trade surplus is small and has continued to fluctuate in recent years. China's current trade surplus is only equivalent to 1% to 2.5% of GDP. From the expansion of China's foreign trade exports and the increase of foreign exchange reserves, it will gradually shift from an excessive emphasis on exports to earn foreign exchange to a balance of foreign trade imports and exports. China is not only doing everything possible to expand exports, but also opening its market to the world. Therefore, the basic characteristics of China's foreign trade development This reflects that China is still far from being the “world’s factory”. The gap between the four micro entities reflects that China is not yet the "world's factory." In the process of economic globalization, the development of the world economy increasingly requires interdependence. China's economy is indeed developing rapidly, but developed countries and their multinational companies have not stopped either. Take the initiative. Foreign capital only transfers low-end labor-intensive industries. When multinational companies move factories and even R&D centers to mainland China, their response strategy is to master core technologies and then master the formulation of rules, and then through rules The formulation firmly grasps the initiative of competition. In terms of technology, there is still a big gap between China's manufacturing industry and foreign investment. As far as color TVs are concerned, key components such as flat glass and electron guns have to rely on imported domestic appliance giants. They are not on the same level. No company can reach the level of Japan's Sony.

After joining the WTO, the gap between Chinese enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises has become wider in industries, fields, links, and markets with high requirements for technology and knowledge-intensiveness, brand value, and complex business organizations. For example, in the field of high-end textile fabrics, due to the lack of understanding of technology Not enough, the competitiveness of domestic enterprises in my country is weak; in the computer and household appliance industries, the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises is mainly in the assembly process and the domestic sales market, but domestic enterprises are not strong in basic and important application fields. In terms of financing, domestic enterprises have the following characteristics compared with foreign enterprises: First, there are few financing methods. Domestic enterprises have very few mergers, reorganizations, and acquisitions, and this method has become very common. Second, there are few financing channels. There is a large amount of capital in the domestic non-state-owned economy and private hands, but none of it has entered into corporate financing. The openness of the market has inevitably narrowed the financing channels. In terms of investment, the current global economic downturn has also had a certain impact on the growth of the manufacturing industry, and investment risks have increased. At present, my country's manufacturing industry has fully realized marketization. The maturity of the domestic market, macro policies, and economic systems are all undergoing adjustments and changes. The investment returns of enterprises are highly uncertain, and the international competitiveness of enterprises in which funds are invested is very uncertain. In terms of R&D and management, the overall level of my country's R&D investment, including the human, material and financial resources invested in R&D, is far from being competitive compared with developed countries. This impact will increase as time goes by. Management is the weakest link in the operation of our country's enterprises. The management systems and models of domestic enterprises still leave more or less traces. This is very fatal to the development of enterprises. If this situation does not change, the competitiveness of enterprises will be greatly reduced. discount. Some people regard the rise of the IT industry as the basic basis for China to become the "world's factory". We might as well analyze it further at the end. With the upgrading and transformation of international new technology industries becoming more and more spectacular, various data are quite gratifying. But whether it is hardware, software, or even real IT services, the main market is still composed of foreign manufacturers. Zhongquan is a foreign manufacturer, and there are only two domestic software vendors in the top 10; in the hardware market, Intel, New HP, International Business Machines Corporation, etc. have all crossed the $1 billion mark early on. Even in the personal computer industry, domestic brands have a high share, but a large part of the sales and profits of each domestic machine is shared by foreign companies. People in the industry generally know that four models have emerged in the IT manufacturing industry: OEM, ODM, DMS, and EMS. They have advanced layer by layer and their technical content has gradually improved. One type of OEM is to do OEM work for brand manufacturers according to the same pattern. All designs belong to others. If there is a problem during manufacturing, you have to go back to the outsourcing manufacturer to solve it, which is of great value. ODM (Official Design and Manufacturing) goes a step further. In addition to manufacturing and processing, it also adds a design link, that is, accepting the entrustment of brand manufacturers and undertaking (design, manufacturing, and after-sales service) according to their technical requirements. Another step further, it integrates design, manufacturing , service in one, which is equivalent to brand manufacturers giving basic system requirements to OEMs for maintenance. EMS (Engineering, Manufacturing, Service) is a recently emerged model in which brand manufacturers only define product specifications and develop markets, and do the rest. This is the concept of a "manufacturing center" that truly has its own core value meaning, which is far different from the simple OEM processing in the early days. And many of our manufacturing companies are by no means simple OEMs. In addition, our IT companies do not have enough profit margins or financing support. They have not been able to build their own core competitiveness. When the corporate situation changes, foreign companies have already had a strong financial foundation, while Chinese IT companies have , how will they survive the same bad situation? High quality and low price are the first way for domestic brands to survive and achieve accumulation and sustainable development. Therefore, all the efforts of enterprises in the past are not just early market cultivation and promotion. To sum up, we can draw a basic conclusion: it is too early to say that China has become the "world's factory".