China to further reform, opening up to advance new industrialization: minister

Advancing new industrialization needs more endeavors to deepen reform and expand opening up, Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong said on Friday, Azernews reports, citing Xinhua.

China will remove all restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, and is planning to pilot opening value-added telecommunications services such as internet data centers this year, Jin said on the sidelines of the ongoing national legislative session.

Jin added that the ministry will strive to maintain the upward trend of the industrial economy, promote the high-quality development of key industrial chains in the manufacturing industry, speed up the construction of a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as the backbone, enhance industrial sci-tech innovation, and promote the integration of IT applications and industrialization.

Nurturing more specialized and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is also high on the ministry's agenda, he said, adding that China has cultivated 124,000 specialized and innovative SMEs.

"There are already about 200 industrial clusters featuring SMEs in China. This year we plan to build 100 new such clusters," Jin added.