By HU XINRAN and YIN WEINA
The Hangzhou and the World: The Development and Cooperation of New Industries forum, held on Sept 13, attracted many top business leaders, including Long Yongtu, the former Secretary General of Bo’ao Forum for Asia (BFO) and the most powerful advocate of “China-made”.
At the forum, more than 10 CEOs of new leading global industries met with Zhejiang entrepreneurs and shared their business experiences.
Long noted that China should not feel ashamed of being the world’s factory, although this is a hard year for traditional manufacturing companies. “It would be a terrible mistake to give up manufacturing, including labor-intensive manufacturing,” he added.
In recent years, establishing new industries and industry upgrading has been an ongoing trend for Zhejiang private enterprises. Long said that there are some biased understandings about new industries. To enter new industries without reason may lead to industry excess and waste of resources since any new industry requires the support of the entire industry chain. For the development of these so-called new industries, there are more than 100 cities throughout China that are building the new energy bases, but the output is not satisfactory.
This report caused concern for Long. “This may result in these developing new industries, regardless of their own base, to lead to the structural, potential and long-term industry glut.”
It is very important to develop new industries, but one also should consider its ability, he said. “In the area of new industries, foreign companies have already obtained patents and accumulated experiences greater than China’s, so they will get ahold of core technologies. Domestic new industry development is still underway, and the learning portion is much more important than the investment portion.”
