China ranks 4th in manufacturing development index: report

China ranked fourth in the world in manufacturing development in 2023, according to the 2024 China Manufacturing Power Development Index Report released on Monday.

The report, presented by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the National Manufacturing Strategy Advisory Committee and other relevant departments, provides an in-depth analysis of the development of the manufacturing industries in major countries worldwide, with a focus on trends and major new features in China.

According to the report, China's manufacturing development power index showed an overall positive trend, with its global competitiveness on the rise and notable achievements in areas such as quality improvement, efficiency enhancement, and green, low-carbon development.

The Manufacturing Power Development Index is made up of five sub-indices: scale development, quality efficiency, structural optimization, innovation development, and sustainable development. These metrics comprehensively reflect the strength of a country's manufacturing industry.

According to the report, in 2023, China ranked fourth in the world in terms of the manufacturing development index. While the growth rate of China's manufacturing sector slowed, its overall scale continued to expand.

China represented the second-highest increase in the world in terms of the quality efficiency index, particularly in three key indicators that reflect the efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing - manufacturing value-added rate, labor productivity in manufacturing, and sales profit margin. For the first time in years, all three of these core metrics saw simultaneous improvement.

The report highlighted that China claimed the largest year-on-year improvement in the sustainability sub-index, marking a major highlight in China's manufacturing sector in 2023.

"Among the five indicators, the three indexes of quality efficiency, innovation development, and sustainable development all showed steady increase or growth in a particular manner. This actually indicates that our high-quality development strategy had achieved initial results, marking a shift from focusing on scale to emphasizing quality and efficiency. Our technological innovation also exerted effects, and our transformation paced up. Our focus on high-quality manufacturing was more and more solid," said Wang Decheng, a member of the National Manufacturing Strategy Advisory Committee.

The report also noted some declines in certain sub-indices of China's manufacturing power index, and experts pointed out that the industry faces various challenges. Nevertheless, they emphasized that the overall favorable conditions outweigh the negative factors, the trend of economic recovery remains strong, and the long-term outlook for China's manufacturing sector continues to be positive.

According to the latest data, in the first three quarters of 2024, China's manufacturing value-added grew by 5.2 percent year on year, exceeding the GDP growth rate by 0.4 percentage points. In November 2024, this growth rate further went up to 6.0 percent, showing an overall improvement over 2023.

China ranks 4th in manufacturing development index: report

Chinese scientists announced Monday that they have achieved a breakthrough in yak cloning, with 10 cloned calves all naturally delivered in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region.

These calves, consisting of three black yaks and seven white ones, were born from March 25 to April 5 at a yak breeding and research base in Xizang's Damxung County, all meeting expected standards and steadily gaining weight.

The mass births came after the first cloned yak was born in July 2025, which has grown healthily and weighs about 183 kg now.

The achievement was made using a domestically developed breeding system that combines whole-genome selection with somatic cell cloning, following three years of research by a Chinese scientific team.

"Whole-genome selection can accurately pinpoint excellent genetic loci associated with large body size, fast growth, strong fecundity and disease resistance, high feed conversion efficiency, and tolerance to high-altitude and low-oxygen conditions (cold resistance). On this basis, somatic cell cloning enables 1:1 precise replication of the genotype through asexual rapid propagation (cloning), thereby compressing the breeding cycle to within five years," said Fang Shengguo, a professor at the College of Life Sciences at Zhejiang University and director of the State Conservation Center for Gene Resources of Endangered Wildlife.

Yak farming is one of the key industries targeted for development in Xizang during the country's 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030). Traditional yak breeding has relied on phenotype selection, a process that can take up to 20 years and often leads to declining genetic quality.

Researchers said the new method can shorten the breeding cycle to less than five years by accurately identifying desirable genetic traits such as faster growth, disease resistance, feed efficiency and adaptation to high-altitude, low-oxygen environments, while enabling rapid replication of elite breeding stock.

Experts added that the technology could also support conservation efforts for rare yak genetic resources, including the endangered golden wild yak, whose population in Xizang is estimated at more than 300.

So far, the research team has developed more than 200 cloned embryos of golden wild yaks and hybrid wild-blood yaks, laying the groundwork for future embryo transfer and species recovery programs.

China achieves large-scale births of cloned yaks