On the sidelines of the Second China International Import Expo (CIIE), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) launched its Industrial Development Report 2020 during a CIIE side event organized jointly with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), with participation of senior policy makers and representatives of academia and enterprise.
Titled ‘Industrializing in the Digital Age’, the report presents new analytical and empirical evidence on the future of industrialization in the context of the present technological paradigm shift. A striking finding is that a large number of countries are still far from utilizing advanced technologies and have yet to enter the era of advanced digital production technologies; the report also provides several examples of specific policies and some strategic policy directions.
“The emergence and diffusion of advanced digital production technologies (ADP) of the fourth industrial revolution are radically altering the nature of manufacturing production”, said UNIDO Managing Director Philippe Scholtès. “Developing countries and their firms require appropriate industrial policies, digital infrastructure and skills to take full advantage of the fourth Industrial Revolution to further increase productivity and strengthen the capacity to export”.
“China attaches great importance to the development of digital economy. By accelerating the digital industrialization and industrial digitalization, and promoting the deep integration of the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and manufacturing, the digital transformation of the industrial sector has achieved positive results,” stressed Mr. Zhijun Wang,the Vice Minister of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. “Ministry of Industry and Information Technology would like to further cooperate with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and other international organizations and also global economies to create an open, fair and inclusive digital market, promoting the prosperity and sharing the benefits of digital economy, and therefore, to build up an new ecology of global industrial cooperation and jointly contribute to realizing an inclusive and sustainable development.”
UNIDO supports the event through various activities as, through the CIIE, it hopes to strengthen the export capacity of developing counties and therefore contribute to accelerating inclusive and sustainable industrial development.