China’s manufacturers should aim to become global corporations, said Wang Zhile, research fellow of Chinese Academy of International Trade & Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce at the China Insights Forum last week.

“We are now facing the challenge of rules of the game and China is not prepared to yet face that challenge so we need to think carefully about our position in the world,” he said.

The forum, themed “Implications of China’s Economic Restructuring: From Made in China to Made by China”, was organised by China Daily and co-hosted by IngDan, and held in Shenzhen IngDan Space.

The forum comes at a crucial time for China, as 2016 marks the start of the 13th Five-Year Plan, as well as the first stage of the “Made-in-China 2025” strategy initiated by Premier Li Keqiang to transform China into a smart and innovative world manufacturing power by 2025.

Wang singled out the significance of compliance for judging global corporations, noting such firms must follow international rules in the age of globalisation.

Denis Depoux, Asia deputy president of Roland Berger, said that Manufacturing China 2025 is part of a global competition, in which major countries share the goal to reinvent their manufacturing in the industrial supply chain.

“Chinese manufacturing companies should follow a gradual approach to avoid pitfalls in this transformation,” he warned.

Depoux saw valuable implications in Europe’s “Industry 4.0” initiative to China’s transformation.

He pointed out that the Industry 4.0 is not only about modernisation, but to simply make China’s manufacturing fit for higher quality, higher efficiency, more connection with the end-user market, simply because the world is in a volatile and uncertain situation.

Zhang Jing’an, former member of the leading party group at the Ministry of Science and Technology, agreed that it was difficult and challenging for China’s plan to turn “Made in China” to “Made by China”.

“To achieve that, they must target high-end products. China is currently producing only low and middle level products,” he said.

It is also faced with challenges including the disruptive innovation of US manufacturing and the ‘Industry 4.0’, he added.

Zhang pointed out that the relationship between the government and the market will be the most important problem for China’s reform down the road.

In the past, reform largely relied on administrative ways, in which the government might not have been in the right place, Zhang said.

“That’s why we need to innovate from the corporate side in the future,” he said.

Xu Hongcai, director of economic research at China Center for International Economic Exchanges, urged Chinese corporations to export their manufacturing sector abroad to help developing countries form a “complete industrial chain”, and not just build infrastructure.

“China has such capability…. It will inject new energy into the global economy,” he added.

He said China’s economic development is resilient, with the manufacturing sector as a significant driving force.

“The most important thing is that our manufacturing is complete, and this is quite unique,” he said.