The hottest PMI hovers in the middle line, and the

PMI hovers in the middle line, and the overall competitiveness of the manufacturing industry is not strong

authoritative statistics show that the purchasing manager index (PMI) of China's manufacturing industry was 50.1% in June 2013, down 0.7 percentage points from the previous month, hitting a four month low; The purchasing managers' index (PMI) of China's manufacturing industry rose slightly by 0.2 percentage points to 50.3% in July, which has been above the middle line for the tenth consecutive month. The PMI of HSBC manufacturing industry in June was 48.2%, a nine month low; The final value of HSBC manufacturing PMI in July was 47.7, an 11 month low

according to the classification of problems reported by Chinese enterprises in June, 47.0% of enterprises reported insufficient orders, 45.4% of enterprises reflected rising labor costs, 40.9% of enterprises reflected tight funds, and 26.5% of enterprises reflected rising transportation costs

then, from the index content of PMI composition, what are the main factors affecting the continuous and general decline of PMI

external: complex and changeable environment

macro level factors (external environment): mainly affected by the complex and changeable world economy, the continued weakness of global market demand and China's economic macro-control policies

globally, the pace of economic expansion in the United States has weakened due to the adverse impact of the US fiscal tightening on the improvement of private demand; The market demand in the euro area is weak, confidence is low, and the deepening of the economic recession is beyond expectation; China, Brazil and some major emerging market economies have significantly weakened domestic demand and significantly slowed down growth, and the global economy will face the risk of continuing to decline. To this end, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its latest forecast on the world economic outlook on July 9, adjusting the growth rate of the global economy this year and next to 3.1% and 3.8% respectively, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous forecast; The growth rate of the U.S. economy this year and next was adjusted to 1.7% and 2.7% respectively, 0.2 percentage points lower than the previous forecast; The growth rate of China's economy this year and next was adjusted to 7.8% and 7.7% respectively, down 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points respectively from the previous forecast

from the perspective of China, due to the comprehensive impact of the continuous downward pressure of the global economy, the pain caused by China's economic restructuring, the promotion effect of the new economic growth mode has not yet fully emerged, the obvious weakening of domestic demand and the central bank's inhibition of credit supply, China's economic growth has slowed down significantly and has a trend of further slowdown. According to the National Bureau of statistics, China's gross domestic product (GDP) in the first half of the year was 24.80 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.6% year-on-year. Economists previously predicted that China's GDP growth in the first half of the year would be 8% or slightly higher

internal: the overall strength is not strong

micro level factors (internal environment): it is mainly affected by the weak overall competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry

as we all know, China's manufacturing industry, as the world's factory, is at the middle and low end of the global value chain as a whole in the difficult process of promoting from made in China to created in China. These phenomena have fully demonstrated the grim fact that China is a manufacturing power rather than a manufacturing power. It is undeniable that these phenomena are not only related to China's industrial development policy, industrialization process, local protectionism and other factors, but also related to the lack of R & D system with the ability of original innovation and integrated innovation in Chinese manufacturing enterprises, and the inability to develop products with high technology and high value-added characteristics; With the failure to effectively promote the deep integration and application of advanced manufacturing technology, management technology and information technology; It is directly related to many factors such as the lack of effective management and innovative development momentum of enterprises. Due to the existence of these common problems, the overall competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry is not strong, and it can only become a world factory to participate in the global coaxiality testing machine of different materials testing machine, which is often a fierce competition in the middle and low-end market; The global high-end market is still monopolized by enterprises in the United States, Germany, South Korea and Japan, and high profits continue to flow to the pockets of these enterprises

on March 23, 2012, Wang Yong, then director of the state owned assets supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, clearly pointed out at the video conference on the comprehensive management improvement activities of central enterprises that through the benchmarking research between central enterprises and world-class enterprises, the gap between central enterprises is quite large, highlighting the five aspects of current basic management, management innovation, investment and M & A, management informatization and international operation and management. In addition, the management innovation of central enterprises is still in the stage of learning and imitation on the whole, and no substantive breakthrough has been made

according to the data, the machine tool industry belongs to the high-end equipment manufacturing industry. China is the world's largest machine tool manufacturing country and the world's largest machine tool importer, but there is an obvious gap between Chinese machine tool industry enterprises and world advanced enterprises. At present, 90% of China's CNC systems need to be imported from abroad. Although some domestic CNC system manufacturers have basically mastered the key technologies such as multi axis linkage, RTC using vacuum system to directly pre form P (rotating tool center point) 3D tool compensation in the mold, the high-end CNC system developed by them still lags far behind foreign products in terms of machining accuracy, reliability and stability. It is also understood that in order to improve product quality, Shanghai Volkswagen uses imported grinding machines to process Auto parts

in recent years, the NC rate of machine tools produced in China has increased. In 2011, the NC rate of metal cutting machine tools was 29.9%, and the NC rate of forming machine tools was 6.29%; However, compared with the numerical control rate of 60% - 70% of output in developed countries such as Japan, the United States and Germany, and the numerical control rate of output value of key new material enterprises whose R & D investment accounts for more than 3% of the main business income, 80% - 90%, the level of numerical control rate of machine tool equipment in China is still very low, which will inevitably affect the processing accuracy and efficiency of products

in 2011, the evaluation results of the development level of the integration of industrialization and industrialization in the machine tool industry (71 enterprises participated in the evaluation) showed that only 54.2% of enterprises applied plan management, 11.3% of enterprises applied the ranking of key resource requirements, 50.7% of enterprises applied budget management, 15.5% of enterprises realized the integrated application of business and finance, and 11.3% of enterprises realized the automatic exchange of data between management systems and manufacturing execution systems. The evaluation results also show that at present, the production mode and management concept of Chinese machine tool industry enterprises are generally backward, and the level of comprehensive integration, collaboration and innovation between information systems needs to be improved

the shipbuilding industry is also a high-end equipment manufacturing industry, and China is also the world's largest shipbuilding country. Although from January to June this year, China received 22.9 million deadweight tons of new ship orders (mainly container ships, oil tankers and bulk carriers), an increase of 113.2% year-on-year (there is still uncertainty about orders and delivery); However, affected by the above factors, most high-end ship orders of many international offshore engineering platforms, special transport ships and luxury cruise ships, including large warships, are still obtained by shipbuilding enterprises in South Korea, Japan, Europe, the United States, Russia and other countries

in the global competition with shipbuilding enterprises in South Korea, Japan and other countries, China's two major shipbuilding groups also feel that the gap between the two sides in manufacturing technology, construction cycle and shipbuilding efficiency is obvious. The technical gap mainly focuses on the research and application of key technologies such as precision control technology, regional painting technology, regional outfitting technology, construction mode, management mode and information technology. The gap in construction cycle and shipbuilding efficiency is reflected in: the construction cycle of VLCC in China is 11 months, and that in South Korea is 7.5 months; China's shipbuilding efficiency is 22.9hr/cgt, while the general level of Korean and Japanese shipbuilding enterprises is 10~15hr/cgt. In addition, for the same type of VLCC, China has 9300 machine installed pipes, 155000 meters of cable and 300 upper construction closure pipes, while South Korea has 8700, 113000 meters and 10

in 2011, the evaluation results of the development level of the integration of industrialization and industrialization in the shipbuilding industry (21 enterprises participated in the evaluation) showed that 66.6% of the enterprises were in the stage of infrastructure construction and single application, and the shipbuilding industry was in the stage of one-way application to comprehensive integration application as a whole, and the level of comprehensive integration, collaboration and innovation had not reached its due height. The evaluation results also show that the current shipbuilding mode of most Chinese shipbuilding enterprises is still far from the modern shipbuilding mode, making it difficult for informatization to play its due role

future: to improve competitiveness

to sum up, in order to promote the continuous recovery of PMI and maintain above the 50% warning line of prosperity and decline, in addition to the government's strengthening of macro-control, China's manufacturing industry should also face the reality, recognize itself, and fundamentally strive to improve the overall competitiveness. Specifically:

first, there is little room for direct investment by relying on the previous government stimulus policies. The key is to rely on market mechanism regulation, effectively eliminate backward production capacity, promote economic restructuring and accelerate the transformation of economic growth mode

second, change the traditional product research and development mode as soon as possible, strengthen the research and application of cutting-edge technology, common technology, key technology and supporting products, and effectively establish a research and development system with independent innovation ability

third, we should effectively promote the deep integration and application of advanced manufacturing technology and information technology, including the research and application of high and new technologies such as intelligent manufacturing, agile manufacturing, service-oriented manufacturing, mobile Internet, cloud computing and big data

fourth, take the decision of the state owned assets supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council to carry out a two-year central enterprise management improvement activity as an opportunity to comprehensively and deeply promote the innovative development of China's manufacturing enterprise management, and effectively change the traditional and backward management concepts, management models and management systems

(the author is Jin Daren, executive director of the management engineering branch of the Chinese society of Mechanical Engineering)