Yangtze River Delta mold industry must adjust its development strategy

The Yangtze River Delta mold industry originated in Shanghai. From the 4O century in the 20th century, Shanghai mold has been ranked first in the country. By the late 1980s, with the continuous deepening of the reform and opening-up policy, the attention and support of the relevant state departments to the mold industry, and the publicity and promotion of social organizations such as mold industry associations, some local governments in Zhejiang province began to mold Industry is supported and fostered as a local pillar industry. For example, the Yuyao Municipal Government promulgated the [2005] No. 47 article, in the 8 clauses 25, the technical upgrading, standardization, informationization, core competitiveness, and change of product structure of the molds.

In the effort to upgrade the industry in the Yangtze River Delta, there is a reliance on foreign capital. Taking Zhejiang Province as an example, there are nearly a thousand manufacturing clusters in the province, but the research and experimental development (r&d) expenditures of manufacturing enterprises above designated size in these industrial clusters account for only 0.45% of sales revenue, which is lower than the national total. The average level of manufacturing enterprises above designated size was 0.61%, not to mention the high proportion of 3% in developed countries.

The mold industry in the Yangtze River Delta must accelerate the adjustment of its development strategy, change the mode of development, enhance the level of development, and realize the leap from low-end manufacturing to high-end manufacturing.

The survey report of the Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Statistics shows that the huge investment of Zhejiang's manufacturing companies is mainly used for the expansion of reproduction; most of the new product's technology sources adopt "impossessed" imitation methods.

At the same time, statistics show that the total international capital of the two provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Delta accounted for nearly 30% of the total amount of actual foreign capital utilized in the country. This is the area where China has used the most foreign capital.

Making full use of foreign investment for development has become a significant feature of the manufacturing industry in the Yangtze River Delta. The economic prosperity in the Yangtze River Delta also highlights the internationalization of manufacturing. According to statistics, in Jiangsu, which accounts for one-tenth of China’s manufacturing economy, more than 70% of industrial added value is realized by foreign capital. Even in Shanghai, the financial center of China, industry still has the largest accumulation of foreign investment. Currently, the registered capital of foreign capital in six industries such as special equipment manufacturing exceeds US$1.5 billion; the assets of foreign industrial companies account for 31% of the total industrial assets in the city. More and more "foreign workers" poured into the Yangtze River Delta.

Mold manufacturing, as the mother of industry. The phenomenon of using foreign capital for development is also more obvious. Although China's mold exports have increased year by year, the level of application of China's mold manufacturing technology is a certain distance from the advanced mold manufacturing countries. The cities of the Yangtze River Delta hope to develop together with the Yangtze River Delta region's manufacturing industry to high-end development, and strive to build a national precision mold design and research and development center, precision mold manufacturing center, precision mold testing center and precision molder training center. In the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” of China's mold industry, it is clear that large-scale, precise, high-end molds will become the future development direction of Chinese mold manufacturing enterprises. In order to achieve these goals, mold companies are actively seeking technology and industrial upgrading.

In the Yangtze River Delta, a large number of local mold companies are trying to “embed” the global value chain to gain technical upgrading and industrial upgrading opportunities. However, practice has proved that this "advanced path of foreign capital dependence" for industrial progress is not necessarily successful. Many experts pointed out that if all the hopes of the mold industry are pinned on foreign technology spillovers, the mold industry in the Yangtze River Delta will be locked at the low end of the global industrial chain.