Xinhua Headlines: New quality productive forces reshaping China’s economic landscape

BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) — China’s economy has sustained recovery momentum in 2024 with significant strides in cultivating new quality productive forces. Experts have said that new quality productive forces have not only injected new vitality into the Chinese economy, but may also have significant impacts on the global economy.

With innovation playing the leading role, new quality productive forces mean advanced productivity freed from traditional economic growth modes and productivity development paths. They feature high-tech, high efficiency, and high quality in line with the new development philosophy.

China has made strides in boosting sci-tech innovation and industrial upgrading. Its global ranking in innovation has increased markedly, while strategic emerging industries have taken a larger share in the national economic output.

An aerial drone photo taken on June 22, 2024 shows the deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle “Pioneer II” undergoing a sea trial. (Shanghai Jiao Tong University/Handout via Xinhua)

STATE-OF-THE-ART IN AIR

According to this year’s government work report, China vows to cultivate new growth drivers, including the low-altitude economy and the commercial space industry.

In the low-altitude economy sector alone, the market size is estimated to surge from over 500 billion yuan (70.11 billion U.S. dollars) in 2023 to 2 trillion yuan by 2030 as the country accelerates the development of unmanned aerial vehicles for tourism and logistics activities, among other uses.

A “flying car” named XPENG X2 recently completed its flight over the CBD in Shenzhen, a technology hub and metropolis in southern China, demonstrating a new trip mode in the future.

According to XPENG AEROHT, an affiliate of electric vehicle maker XPENG, the XPENG X2 offers automatic driving, radar ranging, and automatic obstacle avoidance functions and has completed over 6,000 test flights in various scenarios, including urban CBD, sea, desert and rivers.

The company also tests another state-of-the-art “flying car” with sci-fi elements. The Land Carrier comprises a road vehicle and a flying machine, which can operate independently and automatically separate and combine like “Transformers.” Pre-orders will be available in the fourth quarter of 2024.

As for the commercial space industry, China’s first commercial space launch site, located on the island province of Hainan, has been capable of executing rocket launches since June 30.

Yang Tianliang, chairman of the Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Co., Ltd., said the site is scheduled to conduct its first rocket launch in the second half of this year.

Yang said the plan is to expand the launch site with additional launch pads and provide domestic and international rocket and satellite launch services, thereby accelerating the development of China’s commercial space technology development.

An Xpeng X2 flying car is pictured during a flight demonstration at the headquarters of Xpeng Aeroht in Panyu District of Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, May 15, 2024. (Xinhua/Xu Jiayi)

FULL THROTTLE ON LAND

Investing heavily in innovation reflects China’s continuous efforts to innovate and adapt to rapidly evolving circumstances and is a testament to its ability to leverage a vast pool of talent and resources.

In particular, the full swing of Chinese new energy vehicles (NEVs) has long become a trending topic in the country and abroad.

China’s production and sales of NEVs continued to grow rapidly in the first six months of 2024, both over 30 percent year on year, and the market share of NEVs in China reached 35.2 percent by the end of June, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

In the same period, some 605,000 units of NEVs were exported, representing a year-on-year increase of 13.2 percent.

China’s fast-growing green technologies and thriving new energy market have heightened the country’s magnetism for foreign investors, particularly auto firms keen on turbocharging the electrification trend.

In April, BMW announced an additional investment of 20 billion yuan in its production base in Shenyang in northeast China to facilitate the production of its Neue Klasse EV-only lineup.

Also in April, Volkswagen Group announced an investment of 2.5 billion euros in the expansion of its innovation hub in Hefei in east China to increase its pace of innovation in China.

An aerial panoramic drone photo taken on July 11, 2023 shows new energy vehicles for export at a terminal of Taicang Port, east China’s Jiangsu Province. (Photo by Ji Haixin/Xinhua)

UNREMITTING ENDEAVORS AT SEA

The robust recovery and quality improvement in China’s marine economy has positioned it as a new engine for national economic growth. Sun Shuxian, head of the State Oceanic Administration, spoke at a press conference on Thursday about a marine-related white paper.

In 2023, the economic aggregate of China’s marine industry reached 9.9 trillion yuan, playing a key role in stabilizing economic growth.

Breakthroughs have been made in marine scientific innovation. For example, Chinese deep-sea manned submersibles, namely Jiaolong, Shenhai Yongshi and Fendouzhe, have completed more than half of the world’s manned deep dive missions in the past three years. Marine drugs independently developed by China have taken up nearly 30 percent of the global total listed drugs.

In March 2023, the first cabin of the world’s first commercial submarine data center was launched in Lingshui, Hainan.

Pu Ding, the project manager, said that compared with traditional data centers on land, the submarine center uses less electricity and water for operation and cooling, has a smaller construction area, has more substantial computing power and can be deployed faster.

Such eco-friendly, high-tech projects are burgeoning across the country, fueling the rise of new quality productive forces to create new industries and job opportunities.

The development of China’s new quality productive forces may have significant impacts on the global economy, influencing innovation and competitiveness across various sectors and industries, said Ronnie Lins, director of the China-Brazil Center for Research and Business, at the sixth episode of the China Economic Roundtable held recently.  

(Video reporters: Li Jiale, Wang Huan and Wu Feizuo; Video editor: Li Ziwei, Mu Xuyao, Zhu Cong and Wu Yao)■

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