Interpretation of the Guiding Catalogue for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2024 edition)
On December 27, 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission issued Decree No. 7 of the National Development and Reform Commission, clarifying that the Guiding Catalogue for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2024 edition) (hereinafter referred to as "the Catalogue") has been deliberated and adopted at the 6th Committee meeting on December 1, 2023, and will come into effect on February 1, 2024. The Guiding Catalogue for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2019 edition) will be abolished simultaneously. The Catalogue is an important basis for guiding social investment direction, government management of investment projects, and formulating and implementing fiscal, taxation, credit, land, import and export policies. The main revision within the Catalogue and the interpretation of the guiding ideology reflected by these revisions are as follows:
1 Revision content
The main revision within this Catalogue is the adjustment of its entries. According to National Development and Reform Commission Meets and Press, there are a total number of 1005 entries in the Catalogue, including 352 entries in the encouragement category, 231 entries in the restriction category, and 422 entries in the elimination category, thereby continuing to follow the management classification of encouragement, restriction, and elimination. Compared to the previous Catalogue (2019 edition), the total number of entries has decreased by 473, with 469 fewer entries in the encouragement category, 16 more entries in the restriction category, and 20 fewer entries in the elimination category.
In terms of industry settings, new major categories and related fields that are conducive to industrial optimization and upgrading have been added to the encouragement category, such as "smart manufacturing," "agricultural machinery equipment," "CNC machine tools," and "network security." In the restriction and elimination categories, new major categories and related fields that do not meet the requirements of green development and safe production have been added, such as "fire prevention" and "construction."
In terms of article settings, the government adheres to the principles of marketization and legalization, strengthening the role of standards in areas such as safety, environmental protection, energy consumption, and quality, implementing the requirements for energy efficiency benchmarking and baseline levels in key industries, promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction in key areas, and avoiding simply using production capacity and facility scale as the basis for new restrictions or eliminations.
In terms of expression norms, the encouragement category mainly plays a guiding role. In terms of entry expressions, it mainly combines quantitative and qualitative methods according to the development stage and characteristics of different industries. It should be detailed when appropriate and general when necessary. For fields with clear development directions, indicators and parameters, the expression norms should be specified as clearly as possible. For new industries and formats with unclear development directions, they should be described in a general way without being lengthy. For the restriction and elimination categories, which involve prohibiting new production capacity and eliminating outdated production capacity, in order to highlight operationality and avoid "one size fits all" due to unclear connotations, entry expressions should be as detailed as possible, focusing on key varieties when possible, and specifying indicators and parameters.
The above revisions reflect the overall refinement and clear directionality of the Catalogue. For users, they can more clearly confirm their own industry categories. The Catalogue as a whole is more focused and practical.
2 Guiding ideology
The Catalogue adheres to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly implements the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and implements the deployment of the first meeting of the Central Finance and Economic Committee. It insists on focusing on the real economy in economic advancement, new industrialization promotion, construction acceleration on building up a manufacturing powerhouse, a quality powerhouse, a space powerhouse, a transportation powerhouse, a network powerhouse, and a digital China, and accelerates the construction of a modern industrial system with intelligent, green, integrated characteristics and requirements for completeness, advanced and safety. Combining the content of the Catalogue with the answers given by comrades from the National Development and Reform Commission to reporters' questions about the Catalogue, it is not difficult to see that there are the following policy orientations in the next industrial guidance:
Emphasize the promotion of high-end, intelligent, and green manufacturing.
In order to improve the competitiveness of domestic core manufacturing industries, we need to pay attention to the requirements of green and intelligent development while vigorously developing and upgrading manufacturing industries. We should keep up with technology and gradually achieve intelligentization through advanced technology, and then use intelligentization to reduce carbon emissions and other environmental impacts on enterprises. This will enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises without adding a burden to the environment.
Consolidate the leading position of advantageous industries and speed up tackling of the shortcomings in fields related to safety development.
Industries that have a leading position both domestically and globally will receive certain degrees of support and preference from national policies in the future. The transformation and upgrading of traditional industries will be accelerated to effectively expand high-quality supply. Meanwhile, guided by national strategic needs, on one hand, the resilience and risk resistance of industries will be increased to ensure the security of resources such as energy, food, and industrial chains. On the other hand, concentrated efforts will be made to accomplish major tasks in advantageous industries, overcome scientific and technological difficulties, and ensure the sustained leading position of advantageous industries.
Build a new and efficient service industry system.
It is necessary to focus on the core updates and maintenance of primary and secondary industries while continuously outputting tertiary industries. In the future, national policies may continue to emphasize the promotion of the service industry, emphasizing integration with various high-end industries and technologies to increase efficiency and improve effectiveness of services. This will complement various advantageous industries and high-end manufacturing industries, without any bias.
3 Summarization and prospect
The Catalogue consists of three categories: encouragement, restriction, and elimination. All three categories reflect the guiding direction for the development of subsequent industries, with a focus on high-end industries and various intelligent industries. They also highlight the world's attention to environmental issues as a key factor in developing industries, emphasizing that environmental protection should be taken into account simultaneously when developing industries. Finally, the Catalogue indicates that the tertiary industry is also a key focus for future industries, which can appropriately increase integration with technology to enhance service quality. In the future, public welfare services may also be one of the directions of policy support.
The Catalogue serves as the most basic guiding direction for future industries in China. By using this Catalogue as a starting point, it is believed that more policies conducive to these industries will be introduced in the near future, helping various industries to develop vigorously.
Reference：
[2] 国家发展改革委有关负责同志就《产业结构调整指导目录（2024年本）》答记者问
[3] 《产业结构调整步伐加快》，人民日报海外版（要闻），2024.1.2
