(File photo/China News Service)
(ECNS) - China’s industrial growth reached 6.7 percent in the first half of this year, higher than the expected target set at the beginning of the year, Huang Libin, spokesperson from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at a briefing on Tuesday.
China saw favorable conditions for high-quality development as industrial production was generally stable, with quality and efficiency steadily improving, said Huang.
Central and local governments have implemented a series of measures to stabilize growth, adjust structure and increase efficiency causing industrial growth to rebound to 6.6 percent in 2017, up from 6.1 percent and 6 percent in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Industrial capacity utilization rose from 73.3 percent in 2016 to 77 percent in 2017, and further edged up 0.3 percentage points from January to June this year. Profit margins increased on average by 0.35 percentage points year-on-year, with the asset-liability ratio falling by 0.6 percentage points.
China is dedicated to reducing excess capacity, said Huang, with more efforts made to reduce production capacity in industries such as steel and curb blind production expansion of electrolytic aluminum. The cement, plate glass and chemical industries have all registered improved performance, said Huang.
He added that China has deepened convergence of manufacturing and the Internet, promoted the widespread application of Big Data, cloud computing, and the industrial Internet, and promoted major projects to accelerate development of advanced manufacturing.
But Huang noted that China still faces the problem of imbalanced development, so strenuous efforts are needed to maintain steady, quality industrial growth.
At present, China's manufacturing industry still faces difficulties as it is still in the middle or low end of the world industrial and value chain, with imports required to meet critical core technologies and equipment.
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