At a recent conference, China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Li Yizhong, stated he expected China's industrial value-added index for 2010 would be up 13 percent compared to 2009, exceeding the target of 11 percent set at the beginning of this year. During the first half of 2010, the industrial value-added index in all "upscale enterprises" (including all state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises with an annual turnover above RMB 5 million ($737,000)) rose by 17.6 percent compared to the same period of last year. Mr. Li said China's economy is currently meeting the targets of the government.
The minister also stressed that work on mergers and acquisitions in China should be pushed forward in sectors including automotive, steel, cement, manufacturing, electrolytic aluminum and tombarthite in the last half of this year.
Minister Li added that China should commit itself to the development of energy-saving and environmentally-friendly industries as well as to the development of the information industry.
Meanwhile, Zhu Hongren, chief engineer at China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), predicted that China's industrial value-added index would see its growth drop by a mild margin in the second half of 2010.