China Issues Industrial Transfer Guidance Catalogue

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued the “Industrial Transfer Guidance Catalogue (2012 Version) (Announcement [2012] No.31, hereinafter referred to as the ‘Transfer Catalogue’)” on July 26. The Transfer Catalogue is promulgated for the purpose of promoting coordinated regional development, facilitating orderly industrial transfer, as well as resolving the various problems that have arisen in the process of industrial transfer, such as blind competition among the various regions and backward production capacities.

The Transfer Catalogue consists of five chapters. The first chapter provides general guidance for industrial development to various regions; chapters two to five offer specific guidance to Northeastern China, Eastern China, Central China and Western China, and further specify the specific transfer guidance principles and industries.

The Transfer Catalogue outlines transfer guidance for 15 traditional industries in the abovementioned regions, they are:

• Electronic information
• Pharmaceuticals
• Aviation and aerospace
• Machinery
• Railway transportation
• Automobile
• Chemical industry
• Iron and steel
• Ships and marine engineering equipment
• Light industry
• Food
• Textile
• Building materials
• Nonferrous metal
• Product-oriented service industry

The Transfer Catalogue aims to combine national regional development strategies with local development demands, existing industrial foundation with comparative advantages, industrial work distribution with regional cooperation, and government guidance with market mechanism. This is reflected in the attention that the Transfer Catalogue pays to regional characteristics and the integrated and instructional industrial policies it offers to each area based on the actual situation.

It is anticipated that effective implementation of the Transfer Catalogue will promote orderly industry transfer in all regions, optimize the distribution of industries, and facilitate the industrial transformation and sustainable development of the economy.

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