Recently, 10 ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Commerce, National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Science and Technology have jointly promulgated the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the International Development of Strategic Emerging Industries, setting out clearly the priorities in promoting the internationalisation of such industries. Insiders noted that many new supportive measures for the strategic emerging industries have been launched recently and their impact is soon to be felt. Enterprises in such industries will stand to benefit, and the prospects are particularly rosy for emerging industries like environmental protection, solar energy and Internet of Things having good long-term potential as well as their subsectors. Another key priority will be placed on upstream equipment and materials companies with technological breakthroughs and serving an import substitution function.
Under the Opinions, by the end of the 12th Five-Year Programme period, the international status of strategic emerging industries will be significantly enhanced and their competitive edge on the international market strengthened. While the scale of trade and investment will expand steadily, a wide-ranging and multi-level internationalised development structure will also take shape.
The Opinions put priority on the internationalisation of the key industries of energy saving and environmental protection, new energy, new-generation information technology, bio-technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials and new energy cars.
Efforts will be made to build international bases of the energy saving and environmental protection industries and encourage Chinese products to break into the world market. Exports of entire equipment sets instead of individual items are to be promoted. As regards the new energy sector, action will be taken to step up international cooperation and exchanges in the solar energy industry, support innovative projects using solar energy and assist products in entering the international market. Where new-generation information technology is concerned, support for the import of key equipment will be strengthened. Assistance will be rendered to foreign investors in setting up R&D organisations for three-network convergence (namely TV, Internet and mobile phone). Foreign investors will also be encouraged to establish high-functioning integrated circuits enterprises. In the field of bio-technology, mergers and reorganisation of domestic enterprises engaged in bio-medicine and bio-breeding will be encouraged. Large-scale multinational corporations will be nurtured, and enterprises will be encouraged to serve as contractors for outsourced drugs production and R&D activities for international firms. Towards high-end equipment manufacturing, support will be lent to manufacturers of aviation and marine engineering equipment and high-end intelligence equipment to invest in factories overseas for engaging in the production and assembly of parts. Domestic and foreign enterprises in the marine engineering equipment business will be encouraged to set up high-quality equity joint ventures and contractual joint ventures. As regards new materials, mergers and reorganisation among enterprises are to be promoted to enhance their international competitiveness. In the area of new energy cars, efforts will be devoted to foster leading domestic enterprises and multinational corporations in new energy cars and to encourage them to play a part in formulating international standards.
To promote the internationalisation of strategic emerging industries, the Opinions also call for stepping up the fiscal, tax and finance policy support for these industries. Measures on strengthening the alert system to help enterprises in face of international trade protectionism will be put in place.
The Opinions specify that fiscal and tax support policies meeting with the specific needs of the strategic emerging industries will be implemented. Support will be rendered in the areas of export credit and export credit insurance to help key products, technologies and services break into the global market. Towards products in industries such as aviation and aerospace and high-end equipment manufacturing involving large transaction amounts or which can drive the exports of products that carry domestic patents and standards, key support will be given with respect to export credit and export credit insurance. The establishment of an alert system will also be expedited. In particular, for sectors like bio-breeding and bio-medicine where there is a rapid inflow of foreign investment, efforts to monitor and study the trends of these industries on the mainland and overseas will be escalated and the alert system will be perfected as soon as possible. Enterprises will be encouraged to get prepared for anti-dumping, anti-subsidies and countervailing measures and guided to actively make use of the WTO notification and enquiry mechanism to cope with non-tariff barriers imposed by other countries.
