In a significant push to cultivate new growth engines, China is prioritizing biomanufacturing as a cornerstone future industry, aiming to harness its potential to upgrade traditional sectors and forge entirely new tracks in the green economy.

Biomanufacturing, an innovative production paradigm that converges biology, chemistry and engineering, is transforming waste into wealth. Industrial exhaust is being converted into fish feed, used cooking oil into jet fuel and crop straw into biodegradable film. This technology, characterized by its low carbon emissions, efficiency and renewability, is now at the forefront of the nation's industrial strategy.

The sector has been explicitly outlined as one of the six future industries and a new economic growth point, according to the recommendations for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) adopted by the fourth plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC)Central Committee in October.

Zhang Linshan, a researcher at the National Development and Reform Commission's Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, said, "As a typical representative of new quality productive forces, biomanufacturing is at a critical stage of transitioning from the laboratory to industrialization, which holds strategic significance for China to seize the opportunities of the new technological revolution and build long-term competitive advantages."

Li Boyang, head of the consumer goods industry research institute at the China Center for Information Industry Development, said: "Biomanufacturing can be a crucial direction in our efforts to build a manufacturing powerhouse. On the one hand, it can cultivate numerous new sectors such as biomaterials, bioenergy, biopharmaceuticals, bioenvironmental protection, biochemicals and bio-agriculture. On the other, this advanced technology can help many traditional industries upgrade and transform."

This direction is seen as a vital development following smart and green manufacturing. China's innovation capacity in the field is growing, accounting for over 20 percent of global academic publications and patent applications, supported by a network of national key laboratories and industrial innovation platforms, said the China Center for Information Industry Development.

Globally, investment and financing in synthetic biomanufacturing have maintained a compound annual growth rate of about 30 percent since 2015, and are projected to reach around $25 billion in 2025. In China, annual investment in biomanufacturing has grown to nearly 30 billion yuan ($4.3 billion), Li estimates.

Chen Guoqiang, director of Tsinghua University's Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology, highlighted the inherent advantages of biomanufacturing. "It offers fundamental benefits of being low-carbon, environmentally friendly and safe."

While acknowledging higher initial costs, Chen expressed optimism about its broad prospects, suggesting that policy support to expand application scenarios, especially in bulk materials, could steadily grow the market.

The strategic importance of the sector was a central theme at the recent 2025 Biomanufacturing Conference held in Chongqing last week. The conference said that biomanufacturing represents a crucial future form of materials production, and is widely regarded internationally as a potential core driver of the fourth industrial revolution. Vigorously developing biomanufacturing is deemed to have great significance for fostering new quality productive forces and advancing new industrialization.

The conference called for enhanced scientific research and innovation, targeting fundamental scientific problems and major engineering bottlenecks. It emphasized strengthening original innovation and breakthroughs in core technologies to deepen the integration of scientific and industrial innovation.

Furthermore, it advocated for synergistic development across industry, academia, research, application and finance. The goal is to link various industry segments into robust chains, transforming individual corporate strengths into ecosystem advantages.

Expanding application scenarios was also highlighted. Participants urged active promotion of bio-manufactured products in diverse fields such as medical health, common chemicals, cosmetics, new materials and green energy to enhance scenarized, diversified and high-end product supply capabilities.

The 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) has already yielded notable highlights for China's biomanufacturing development. Li said the industry's scale has steadily expanded with accelerated layout in emerging areas.

Subsectors like bio-based materials, bio-based chemicals and food additives have seen sustained growth, with bio-fermentation output value increasing by approximately 20 percent compared to 2020. China leads the world in output for several bulk products, while it has achieved parallel or leading development with developed nations in emerging areas like hyaluronic acid, polylactic acid and artificially synthesized starch, Li added.

masi@chinadaily.com.cn