Читать книгу Global Manufacturing and Secondary Innovation in China - Xiaobo Wu - Страница 20

Study of technological innovation capabilities (TICs) at the industrial level is a systematic work involving many aspects of technological innovation process. There have been a number of studies on the evaluation index of industrial technological innovation in China and other countries. Different evaluation systems have been formed, based on the indicators including technology R&D investment budget, research personnel, research outcomes, technology transfers, new product sales, new product exports and other indicators. This book evaluates the innovation competence of the manufacturing sector using the indicators such as science and technology investment as a percentage of GDP, numbers of patent application filings and the proportion of new & high-tech products in exports.

Table 1-7 A Comparison of science and technology investments between China and other countries

Note: The amounts were converted by the exchange rate in July 2017.

Data Source: World Bank.

As an important indicator for measuring the investment quality, science and technology investment as a percentage of GDP is of great importance to a nation to improve manufacturing technology and production efficiency. The basic indicators for measuring the science and technology investment ratio include R&D budget to GDP ratio, per capita R&D expenditure, etc. Table 1-7 shows that China is still trying to catch up with the developed industrialized nations in the total investment in science and technology. The gap is narrowing year by year. China’s R&D expenditure to GDP ratio has far exceeded that of India, also a developing country, fully reflecting the importance China has attached to technological innovation. However, China’s per capita investment in science and technology is still much lower than that of the developed countries. Compared with the developed countries, China has not even reached 50% in all indicators.

The number of patent application filings is an important indicator to evaluate independent TICs of industries and companies. Table 1-8 benchmarks China’s technological innovation and technology application in 2015 against the international level. The table shows that China is at a relatively high level in technical patent filings by both resident and non-resident applicants. This shows the significant progress China has made in the TICs and technical application level over years of development. However, it is worth noting that, as shown in Diagram 1-9, although the number of patent application filings in China is large, the proportion of overseas patent applications is much lower than that of the developed countries. There is still a disadvantage of “high quantity but low quality”.

Table 1-8 Filed patent application documents in China and other countries in 201 5

Country	Filed patent application document (piece)
by residents	by non-residents
China	968,252	133,612
US	288,335	301,075
Japan	258,839	59,882
Germany	47,384	19,509
UK	14,867	7,934
France	14,306	1,994
The Republic of Korea	167,275	46,419

Data Source: World Bank.

Diagram 1-9 Application for domestic and overseas patents by Chinese residents

Data Source: State Intellectual Property Office of the P. R. China.

The proportion of high-tech industry in the manufacturing industry is an important indicator for measuring the technical level of the manufacturing industry. The development of high-tech industry has significantly driven the development of manufacturing industry. It has become an important means for developed countries to widen the gap between them and developing countries in technical level. It can be seen from Table 1-9 that the proportion of China’s high-tech product exports in its manufactured exports has reached the international advanced level, which reflects that China’s manufacturing technology has won some international recognition.

Table 1-9 High-tech exports as a percentage of manufactured exports in China and other countries in 2015 (%)

Data Source: World Bank.

The above comparison of the manufacturing technological innovation level in China and other countries produced a static analysis of China’s manufacturing technological innovation capabilities. Next, we will dynamically analyze the overall atmosphere of innovation in China and the changes in manufacturing technological innovation capabilities in perspectives of China’s total R&D investment, output of new products as a percentage of the total output value, and the export of new high-tech products. See Table 1-10 and Table 1-11.

Table 1-10 China’s R&D investment and new product output value in 2009–2014

Note: Due to the change of statistical indicators, new product output value data in 2012–2014 are replaced by new product sales revenue.

Data Source: Statistical Communiqués of the People’s Republic of China on the National Economic and Social Development, issued by China’s National Bureau of Statistics in 2009–2014; Statistics Yearbook on Science and Technology Activities of Industrial Enterprises, 2009–2014.

From the data in Table 1-10, it can be seen that in recent years, China’s R&D investment has been growing rapidly. In 2012, China’s R&D investment exceeded RMB 1 trillion yuan for the first time. R&D investment to GDP in 2013 reached an all-time high of 2.09%, indicating that China’s investment in R&D started to rank top in the world. This will certainly improve the technological innovation level of Chinese manufacturing enterprises by large margins. In addition, as companies paid more attention to product upgrades, the new product output value of Chinese manufacturing companies also stayed at a relatively high level. Despite a short-term decline in 2011, it still maintained a high-level development in the subsequent years. This also reflected that the product and process innovation capabilities of Chinese manufacturing enterprises maintained at a relatively high level.

After joining the WTO, with the improvement of technological capabilities, China’s manufacturing industry has made great progress in exporting technology-intensive products amid industrial manufactured goods. The structure of China’s industrial exports has switched to one oriented to fine machining, deep processing and high value added. The proportion of industrially manufactured goods with relatively high technological content and value added is growing. The changed structure of exported commodity has reflected the fundamental improvement in the international competitiveness of China’s industry. See Table 1-11.

Table 1-11 Export of China’s industrially manufactured goods, 2006–2015

Note: High-tech products include the products of the pharmaceutical manufacturing, aviation, spacecraft and equipment manufacturing, electronics and communications equipment manufacturing, computer and office equipment manufacturing, medical equipment and instrumentation manufacturing and information chemicals manufacturing.

Data Source: the website of China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

The above research on the competitiveness of China’s manufacturing industry shows that after a decade of rapid development, China’s manufacturing industry has made a great progress in terms of production efficiency and technological innovation capabilities. Nevertheless, there is still a big gap between China’s manufacturing industry’s development level and the international level, which is mainly reflected in the gap of the technology level of manufacturing industry. To narrow this gap, it’s necessary to fundamentally rely on the technological progress and industrial upgrading of the manufacturing industry. In the current situation, technological innovations can help improve the competitiveness of “Made in China”, gradually shifting from comparative advantage to overall competitive advantage. It can make China a real “Manufacturing Power” and is an essential condition for achieving leapfrog development of China’s economy.