China’s hi-tech manufacturing faces ‘extraordinary pressures’ as 2023 output stalls
- Industrial output from hi-tech manufacturers rose by 2.7 per cent year on year in 2023, but this marked the lowest level of growth since records began in 2018
- Beijing has pinned its hopes on innovation and technology to power the world’s second-largest economy as it seeks to find new growth engines
Output from China’s hi-tech manufacturing sector grew at the slowest pace on record last year amid a faltering economy and ever-escalating containment efforts from the United States, with the decline weighing on Beijing’s march towards superpower status.
Industrial output from hi-tech manufacturers rose by 2.7 per cent year on year in 2023, falling behind an increase of 5 per cent from the overall manufacturing industry, marking the lowest level of growth since the National Bureau of Statistics started to release the figures in 2018.
The hi-tech manufacturing industry had seen its growth soar to a record high of 18.2 per cent in 2021 before easing to 7.4 per cent in 2022, having stood at 7.1 per cent in 2020 amid coronavirus-induced disruptions to the global supply chain.
Investment in hi-tech manufacturing grew by 9.9 per cent last year, beating the 6.5 per cent increase seen in the overall manufacturing industry, but the financing still registered the slowest pace since records began in 2015.