"Made in China" is undergoing a "quality Revolution"

The executive meeting of The State Council on August 24 focused on only one topic: deployment to improve the standards and quality of consumer goods and increase the effective supply of "Made in China" to meet the demand for consumption upgrading. This shows the weight of the matter.

Promoting "Made in China" to achieve a "quality revolution" goes hand in hand with upgrading China's economy and moving it to the medium-high end. This is what Premier Li Keqiang has always said. Earlier on April 6, the Standing Meeting of The State Council decided to implement the Standardization and Quality Improvement Plan for the Equipment Manufacturing Industry, leading the upgrading of "Made in China". The key areas identified are robotics, advanced rail transit equipment, agricultural machinery, and high-performance medical devices. The logic can be understood as "homeopathy", that is, starting from the equipment, to solve the problem of "what to make".

The logic of this meeting can be understood as "reverse force", that is, starting from the end of the consumer goods, to solve the problem of "why make". Why? Consumer goods are, of course, fundamentally created to meet the needs of consumers. At this stage of China's development, there has emerged a sizeable middle-income group whose consumption needs have risen from a simple period of food and clothing to a period of quality. To produce a large number of products that consumers are willing to buy and willing to accept, it is bound to require the corresponding follow-up of the entire manufacturing industry, which is called "backward force" -- to improve the standards and quality of consumer goods, backward force the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry.

Both "follow the trend" and "reverse force" mean that "Made in China" needs to complete a "quality revolution". "MadeinChina" or "made inChina", can no longer just a synonym for low-end and cheap. "Made in China" has never rejected or given up "high quality".

In a historical context, at the beginning of reform and opening up in the 1980s, a large number of foreign consumer goods entered the Chinese market, from watches and home appliances to cars. It is in this "open eyes to see the world" that domestic products have gradually realized import substitution, occupied most of the domestic market, and began to sell worldwide. However, as mentioned above, China is now entering a new stage of development, where more and more consumers have higher demand, while many domestic products have not kept up with the quality. At the same time, in terms of product innovation, domestic products are also much less impressive. Therefore, it is not surprising that a large number of consumer goods are imported, and even 1.5 trillion yuan of household consumption abroad every year.

Obviously, the failure to comprehensively improve the standards and quality of consumer goods, on the one hand, will reduce consumer trust, directly affect the domestic consumer market; On the other hand, it will also weaken the international competitiveness of Chinese products and affect export trade. The prime minister even described the situation as "without delay".

To this end, the premier to promote "made in China" to complete a "quality revolution", as a main line, almost through every aspect of economic work. This regular meeting only arranges such a topic: to improve the quality of general consumer goods, such as food, household appliances, consumer electronics, decoration, clothing, cosmetics and daily chemicals, products for the elderly and the disabled, cultural, educational, sports and leisure products, which have strong consumer demand and are closely related to People's Daily life. Combined with the April 6 meeting, there were both sophisticated equipment manufacturing and daily consumer goods close to the people's livelihood, so the puzzle of "Made in China" is more complete. As the Premier pointed out earlier, "Made in China 2025" must not only focus on equipment, but must upgrade the whole industrial chain.

What does the "quality revolution" of "Made in China" depend on in the final analysis? There is no doubt that it is the entrepreneurial and artisan spirit that Premier Li Keqiang has emphasized time and again. Only with the former can there be continuous innovation of the system; With the latter, only the product of excellence.

(Source: Chinadaily.com.cn)