Company News

Beijing, October 28 (Xinhua) -- The website of Time magazine recently published an article saying that "in the future, China will transform from a 'world factory' to a technology and capability exporting country", and "this will be a completely different globalization model: not only exporting products from China's industrial ecosystem, but also giving other countries the opportunity to acquire knowledge embedded in this system". The Financial Times reported that as more and more Chinese companies settle in Africa, it not only creates new job opportunities, but also upgrades the economic value chain and promotes the development of regional supply chains. The Wall Street Journal commented that supplying global factories has become a new direction for Chinese products to go global, and China is becoming a "factory of factories".

 

These judgments all point to an important change that is happening: China's role in the world economy is expanding and upgrading from a product producer to a production organizer.

 

The data released by the General Administration of Customs recently shows that in the first three quarters of this year, China's equipment manufacturing industry contributed nearly 90% of the export increment, and intermediate goods accounted for more than half of the total export value, effectively playing the role of a "stable anchor" in the global production and supply chain. This indicates that the connection between China's exports and the production of various countries is becoming increasingly close. Many electronic product assembly lines in Southeast Asia, automotive factories in Europe, and building materials workshops in Africa require components, equipment, and materials from China. In the words of Gu Qingyang, Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, "China is gradually transforming from a major product supplier to an industrial enabler

 

 

 

On October 15th, at the 140th Canton Fair Service Robot Zone, visitors watched robots climb stairs. Photo by Deng Hua, Xinhua News Agency reporter

 

If the export of intermediate goods involves the question of "what to produce", then outward investment is more directly aimed at the question of "how to organize production". Products can cross national borders, but building production lines, training local workers to operate modern production equipment, and establishing localized supply systems often require the establishment of enterprises to achieve these capabilities.

 

According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Commerce, China's total industry outward direct investment from January to September this year was 128.62 billion US dollars. As of the end of 2025, China's outbound investment stock is nearly 3.4 trillion US dollars, ranking among the top three in the world for nine consecutive years. More and more Chinese companies are going abroad, gradually promoting the evolution of the global production pattern and the improvement of technological capabilities: BYD's new energy passenger car factory in Hungary has a total investment of about 4 billion euros, with a planned annual production capacity of 300000 vehicles. Its European headquarters and research and development center in Budapest enable new models to "adapt to European road standards and regulations from the drawing stage"; As of the end of June this year, the China Egypt Teda Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone has attracted more than 200 enterprises to settle in, with a cumulative investment of over 4.7 billion US dollars and directly creating more than 10000 job opportunities; The Chinese funded glass factory in Tanzania has provided skill training for nearly a thousand technical workers in glass production, mechanical and electrical operations, and equipment maintenance.

 

In the context of technological revolution and industrial transformation, the changing role of China in the world economy is an important manifestation of the development of productive forces and the evolution of global industrial division of labor. Intelligent manufacturing and digital supply chains make cross-border diffusion of production capacity, knowledge, and organizational methods more feasible and necessary than ever before. To enable more countries to acquire the ability to organize production is to expand the benefits of the technological revolution from a few Western countries in the past to a wider global South, thereby further expanding the range of producers and consumers truly integrated into the process of economic globalization. This is a path that requires more patience than simply expanding exports, and it is also a more sustainable and in line with the interests of the majority of people worldwide.

 

Faced with this trend, some countries are attempting to set up trade barriers under the pretext of resisting "shocks" and "squeezes". But protectionist measures often harm the production capacity of these countries themselves - when they impose high tariffs on intermediate goods such as Chinese new energy batteries and automotive parts, domestic car companies face rising costs and supply chain delays, and the so-called "risk reduction" actually becomes "energy reduction". The reason why these actions are difficult to work is fundamentally because they are not really confronting China, but the rapidly advancing technological revolution and industrial transformation on a global scale. Tariff policies can distort the direction of trade flows, and trade barriers can discriminatorily define the "identity" of products, but ultimately they can only temporarily change the place where competition occurs, and cannot completely eliminate competition itself, let alone make up for its own shortcomings.

 

The main reason why China is expanding its role from a product producer to a production organizer is through continuous structural reforms to better adapt to the trends of technological revolution and industrial transformation, and meet the requirements of productivity development. The common direction of these systematic measures, from the accumulation of technological research and development capabilities, to the improvement of overseas business capabilities, from the continuous promotion of digitalization and intelligence in manufacturing, to the construction of a unified national market and the improvement of the business environment, is to make our own production organization more in sync with the pace of production development. The stronger the ability to adapt to change, the more important the role undertaken, which is an objective law of the evolution of division of labor.

 

Looking back at history, the development of productive forces has never completely stopped due to any barriers. Attempting to use "high walls" to counter trends may temporarily protect outdated production capacity, but it is difficult to enhance long-term competitiveness. Truly sustainable common development comes from actively recognizing and adapting to changes, continuously expanding international cooperation, and giving more countries the opportunity to participate in economic globalization and share the fruits of productivity improvement. The path taken by China from "world factory" to "factory of factories" is increasingly proving this point.

 

(Editor in charge: He Xin)