Photo: CFP

Chinese national lawmakers with connections to the equipment manufacturing industry have called for the country to firmly grasp key core component technologies to establish a safe, reliable, independent and controllable supply chains, during the ongoing national two sessions.

Shan Zenghai, chief engineer from Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Co (XCMG), who is a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), called for the establishment of a national innovation platform to strengthened the construction machinery industry and promote the rate of domestic innovation for key components tied to the high-quality development of the industry, China Securities Journal reported on Saturday.

Shan suggested creating a national innovation center and based on this platform to accelerate the research and development of a number of internationally leading core components products to boost the high-quality development of construction machinery and equipment manufacturing industry in China.

Through technological upgrading, key indicators of the company's all terrain crane below the 300 ton-level are now the best class globally, with a 100 percent domestic production rate.

To promote the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry, Shan also suggested integrating and utilizing global innovation resources, building a technology innovation system that integrates manufacturing enterprises, the market and research institutions, promoting the deep integration of industrial and innovation chains, and forming a globally competitive innovation ecosystem.

"We should firmly grasp key core component technologies, establish a safe, reliable, independent and controllable supply chains, and improve the resilience and safety of the industrial chain and supply chain," Shan said.

Wu Hanqi, chairman of CITIC Heavy Industries, who is also a deputy to the 14th NPC, suggested promoting the digital transformation of equipment manufacturing industry.

"Efforts should be made to accelerate the transformation of the heavy equipment manufacturing industry into a high-end, green and intelligent industry," Wu said.

Wu suggested relevant departments further enhance top-down policy design to develop demonstration projects for intelligent manufacturing of heavy equipment and accelerate the application and adoption of digital technology.

Achieving self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology has been an important theme to this year's two sessions as the country targets high-quality development driven by innovation.

In a latest move China is to restructure its Ministry of Science and Technology to better allocate resources to overcome challenges in key and core technologies, and move faster toward greater self-reliance in science and technology.

The restructured ministry will play a bigger role in improving a new system for mobilizing the nation to make technological breakthroughs, optimizing sci-tech innovation, facilitating application of sci-tech advances, and coordinating science and technology with economic and social development.

China's spending on research and development totaled 3.087 trillion yuan ($445 billion) in 2022, an increase of 10.4 percent over the previous year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The country also moved up to the 11th place in the 2022 Global Innovation Index and remains the only middle-income economy in the top 30, according to the latest ranking published by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Global Times