Developing new quality productive forces has become a major theme in China's policymaking since it was first put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September 2023. It is also listed as a priority for this year's economic tasks outlined in the Government Work Report delivered to the ongoing two sessions in Beijing.

"China will strive to modernize the industrial system and develop new quality productive forces at a faster pace this year," noted the report, which placed sci-tech innovation high on the government's agenda.

The national lawmakers and political advisers have expressed full confidence on the prospects of China's sci-tech advance and economic development, saying that the rapid development of strategic emerging industries such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and new green energies will shore up sustainable momentum to support the high-quality development of Chinese economy.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, on Tuesday stressed developing new quality productive forces in China in accordance with local conditions during the second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), the Xinhua News Agency reported.

President Xi called for focusing on high-quality development as the top priority, urging efforts to step up innovation, foster emerging industries, adopt forward-thinking plans for developing future-oriented industries and improve the modernized industrial system.

New growth drivers

The term - new quality productive forces - emerges from continuous breakthroughs in science and technology, which will drive the development of strategic emerging industries that may bring disruptive technological advances in the era of intelligent information.

Developing new quality productive forces is a decisive step in the economy's high-quality development course, Guo Guoping, an NPC deputy and a vice director of the Key Laboratory of Quantum Information of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the Global Times.

"The concept offers guidance for our country to take advantage of the historical opportunity of a new round of technological upgrade and aims to develop strategic emerging industries and future industries," Guo said, noting it is of great importance for China to implement innovation-driven development strategy, seize the high ground in global industrial competition and build up China's manufacturing edge.

Currently, the development of new quality productive forces in China is picking up pace.

Official data showed that China's output of new-energy vehicles reached 9.44 million in 2023, up 30.3 percent on a yearly basis, while the output of solar panels rose by 54 percent to reach 540 million kilowatts. Last year, the country's production of service robots reached 7.83 million sets, up 23.3 percent year-on-year.

The development of new quality productive forces has great potential in China, as its huge market place ensures full testing, application and evolution of new technologies and new business models, Xu Jiuping, a professor of Sichuan University and a member of the National Committee of the 14th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), told the Global Times.

Xu advocated that enterprises, with the support of national innovation policies, make full use of the market demand to help China's manufacturing sector overcome shortcoming and boost the development of new quality productive forces in China.

AI Plus initiative

In recent years, the economic growth in the world was mainly driven by new technologies, which would give birth to new industries and then form new productivity. In order to promote the development of new quality productive forces in China, analysts said the country should firmly adhere to deepening scientific research and technological innovation.

China is now beefing up support for building new manufacturing lines that are integrated with advanced tech breakthroughs such as AI, quantum computing and new and green energies. China ranked 12th place in the 2023 Global Innovation Index, and became the country with the largest number of top 100 sci-tech innovation clusters in the world for the first time, according to the latest ranking by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

It's projected that global AI competition will become a systemic contest in 2024, which will also be a crucial year for China and the US to compete in the in-depth application of generative AI breakthroughs said Liu Qingfeng, chairman of Chinese artificial intelligence company iFlytek who is also a deputy to the NPC.

Liu suggested that China should accelerate technological advances in key sectors including neural science, brain-like intelligence innovation, and quantum computing so as to achieve an overtaking on the curve.

Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile and also a member of the National Committee of the CPPCC, suggested that the country boosts an AI Plus initiative in the national level by strengthening top-level design and clarifying development goals and key tasks, in order to fully give play to the huge potential of AI in achieving leapfrog development of technologies, industrial upgrade and productivity.

Comprised of AI and the manufacturing sector, smart manufacturing is an important part of forming new quality productive forces. However, China's smart manufacturing faces three major problems: Supply capability need to be strengthened, application needs to be promoted, and a standard system needs to be established, said Zhong Zheng, an NPC deputy and vice president of Midea Group.

She suggested that the country support leading companies in various industries to take the lead in developing industrial solutions so as to help more companies set up world-leading smart factories.

While putting focus on emerging and future industries, Chinese analysts said the country should aggregate high-level innovation talent to foster the whole chain of innovation. In addition to independently nurturing high-level talent, the country should also deepen reforms in talent introduction channels and set up a new mechanism to attract talent from all over the globe.

A Chinese national lawmaker has called for more progress in implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, so as to be able to produce fully domestically made systems and related products and eventually gain dominance in the key emerging industry.

Huang Li, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, and chairman of Wuhan Guide Infrared Co - a high-tech firm specializing in infrared thermal imaging technology - said he has submitted a motion that focuses on supporting research and development in the BCI field at the ongoing NPC annual session in Beijing.

"The country should improve laws and regulations, break through institutional barriers, and encourage the development of fully domestically produced, independent, and controllable BCI system platforms and related products to compete for dominance in the industry," Huang told the Global Times in an interview.

BCI technology has broad application prospects in medical and healthcare fields. It can be widely used in detection and diagnosis, screening and monitoring, treatment and rehabilitation for neurological and psychiatric diseases, according to Huang.

"It is an important means to explore unknown fields of the brain, and is also one of the technological highlands that many countries are competing for," he said, adding that the technology also has broad application prospects in areas such as education, entertainment and the military.

China has begun a push to step up research and development in disruptive and frontier technologies. The Government Work Report, which was delivered to the NPC on Tuesday, said that China will vigorously advance new industrialization, make more breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields, and promote the cultivation of emerging industries and future-oriented industries such as hydrogen power, new materials, biomanufacturing, commercial spaceflight, quantum technology and life sciences.

"Cultivating future industries such as BCI is a way for our country to seize the opportunities of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation," Huang said.

China has already made solid progress in the field. In the latest major development, a research team at Tsinghua University recently unveiled cases in which two paralyzed patients regained a degree of movement through wireless, minimally invasive BCIs. One of the patients, who had been paralyzed for 14 years, successfully drank water from a bottle using robotic hands for the first time.

Still, greater efforts are needed to accelerate the research and development of BCI in China, as enterprises and scientific research institutions that have mastered the core technologies in this field are mainly based in the US, Huang said.

Huang also called for a green channel for registration and approval of BCI products and a comprehensive medical-engineering platform for conducting basic research into neurotechnology and clinical applications. Another key area is the need to tackle looming ethical concerns, he said.

The threshold for China's individual income tax exemption should be raised to ease pressure on middle- and low-income earners and propel domestic consumption and economic recovery, according to Dong Mingzhu, a prominent entrepreneur and deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC).

The current monthly individual income tax cutoff point is 5,000 yuan ($694.6), enacted in 2019. Dong's motion suggests it be raised to 8,000 yuan or 10,000 yuan.

Dong, chairwoman of Chinese home appliance giant Gree Electric Appliances, has been calling for raising of the individual income tax threshold for many years, while also optimizing the progressive tax rates, in order to extend more tax reduction benefits to the low and middle-income groups.

During a recent media interview with the Southern Metropolis Daily, Dong reiterated that she will continue to ask for raising the individual income tax threshold at the NPC session this year, given the cutoff point remaining at 5,000 yuan for many years. "Now it's high time the threshold needs to be hiked," Dong said.

Dong has been elected as an NPC deputy for five consecutive terms, ever since 2003. Data reveals that her past motions proposed during the annual two sessions have consistently focused on raising the individual income tax threshold.

Zhang Xuewu, another NPC deputy and chairman of Yanjin Shop Food Co, took the side of Dong by putting forward a motion asking the individual income tax threshold be raised to 8,000 yuan to increase household income for ordinary people while boosting broad consumer confidence in the country.

"In 2024, sustaining economic recovery hinges on restoring and expanding consumer demand, which entails implementing effective measures to ramp up residents' disposable income and their confidence to consume," Zhang said.

Their motions have triggered heated debate among netizens, and raising individual income tax threshold has quickly been trending on Weibo, China's social media platform, gaining over 62,000 likes and 3,400 comments as of press time.

There is a groundswell of support for the motions among Chinese netizens, who uttered that raising income tax threshold is necessary and imperative which will greatly benefit low-income groups and help them cope with life burden.

Editor's Note: While China's economy is undergoing a crucial transformation and upgrade amid the current complex international environment, Western propaganda machines persist in attempting to undermine China's economic progress by creating biased and inaccurate narratives. To counter these false claims, the Global Times is publishing a series of articles that unveil the reality of China's consistent economic development.

During the upcoming two sessions, China is expected to announce this year's targets for GDP growth, as well as consumer prices, employment and other economic metrics. Taking into account the goals announced at recent provincial-level two sessions, it is anticipated that China's 2024 economic growth target may be set at about 5 percent.

The potential growth rate of the Chinese economy is estimated to be 5.5 percent. In my opinion, setting the target at 5-5.5 percent and striving to reach the potential growth rate will be more conducive to fully utilizing economic resources. 

In the long run, a higher economic growth target for 2024 will also prepare China to achieve its long-term objectives through 2035. To achieve these long-range visions, an average annual growth rate of 4.7 percent is needed. In the past few years, due to factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the country's average growth rate did not reach this level. Until 2030, the annual growth rate should exceed 5 percent.

A higher economic growth target will also boost market sentiment. Setting this year's GDP growth rate at higher than the 5.2 percent actual rise for 2023, will send a clear signal that the priority this year is stabilizing economic growth.

During the two sessions, China is expected to announce its fiscal deficit ratio too. Regarding macroeconomic policies, China has repeatedly stated that it will not adopt a deluge of strong stimulus measures like some Western countries. China has learned from the negative impacts of excessively loose monetary policies in Europe and the US. In order to avoid debt expansion and high inflation, China is unlikely to implement the kind of large-scale stimulus measures seen in Europe and the US.

China will introduce more stimulus plans to boost economy, but these are expected to be more targeted and precise. China's monetary policy has always pivoted on precision in implementation, so the pace of reserve requirement ratio cuts has been relatively measured. 

As for fiscal policy, it is expected that the scale of local special-purpose bonds will remain the same as last year, while the central government may slightly raise the deficit ratio. It is generously believed that a deficit ratio of 3.5 percent is more plausible.

The fundamentals of the economy are sound. Some foreign China watchers who make pessimistic comments about China's long-term economic growth do so without any basis. The growth potential of the Chinese economy is still very significant.

When Western media outlets hype the "confidence collapse theory" or "peak theory" about China's economic development, their major arguments interpret short-term phenomena as long-term ones. Because China's economy has encountered some setbacks in recent years, they tend to see these phenomena as long-term trends, which is actually a common mistake made by many observers.

Western media outlets' hype about the "collapse of confidence" exaggerates the impact of the technological and economic crackdown by the US on China. In reality, it is still a form of US-centric thinking. 

Such claims hype the idea that if American capital and technology are not allowed to come to the Chinese market, China's economic prospects are dim. Given the immense size of the Chinese economy and its strong technological capabilities, it can still do very well despite US containment.

Many economic observers, including domestic observers, do not understand the logic of the Chinese government's policy-making. Unlike Western countries' macroeconomic policies, China's policy goals are diverse, including economic, social and political objectives. 

When observing China's economic policies, it is essential to consider the changes in the weights given to these multiple objectives. When non-economic goals have a higher weight, the economic growth rate will obviously be affected, as can be observed from economic fluctuations in recent years.

Last year, the Central Economic Work Conference clearly called for including non-economic policies in the assessment of macroeconomic policy consistency to ensure that the policies form a synergy. It is obvious this year that the weight of China's policy-making has shifted more toward expansion, so the outlook for economic growth this year is promising. If foreign experts and media outlets understand the logic behind China's government policy-making, they will not have a pessimistic view of the Chinese economy.

China's economy saw many new growth points in 2023, and there are still many new highlights to look forward to this year. In the field of medium-level technologies, China is constantly replacing products from developed countries. In the high-tech field, China is rapidly catching up with developed countries. 

In some areas, such as new-energy vehicles and artificial intelligence applications, China is even playing a leading role. A potential new bright spot in China's economy this year is the process of making electric vehicles (EVs) smarter. The development of the EV industry has already entered the second-half stage. 

The first half-stage competition was about the battery, now it's about smart cars. In the field, China is leading the world. In some areas, Chinese brands have even surpassed Tesla. This is something worth paying attention to this year. 

Another issue worth paying attention to is whether the real estate market stabilizes this year. If it does, it will play a very important role in stabilizing the entire economy.

This year, it is likely that foreign trade will resume growing on a full-year basis, as exports rose in the final months of last year. Yuan-denominated exports did not decrease last year. This year, if the Chinese economy recovers well and the US Fed lowers interest rates, the yuan may even appreciate against the dollar. Additionally, global demand is recovering, so with these two factors combined, it is believed that China's foreign trade will most likely record a growth this year.

The US government, together with its allies, has released a joint statement on endorsing 6G principles under the name of national security, a move that Chinese experts said reflects the White House's latest attempts to compete with China in the telecommunication sector.

Gaining an edge in 6G technology is based on the positive development of 5G, an area where the US has fallen behind amid its relentless attempts to block Chinese technological gains. Such an approach, driven by a politically motivated zero-sum game mentality, may not yield substantive results, experts said.

Experts urged the US to drop the "small yard and high fence" mentality and shift toward cooperation rather than competition for win-win outcomes.

The US, together with nine allies including Australia, Canada, Japan and the UK, released on Monday a joint statement to endorse principles for 6G under the name of national security.

The move aims to "advance research and development and the standardization of 6G networks." Trusted technology that is protective of national security is the highlight of the principle.

Although there is no mention of China, it's rather obvious that the move has a target, raising concerns of another round of US-led protectionism in the world telecommunication sector, experts said.

Some foreign media outlets characterized the move as another stage of the US tech race with China.

Before the principles were unveiled, hyping the tense atmosphere, the US publication The Hill, which covers Congress, used a sensational headline in an article on February 21, claiming that "If China dominates 5G and 6G, no defense system can protect America."

The US move was within expectations as it is desperate to make up for what it lost in the 5G era, but by drawing a "little circle" may not help the US catch up in the field, Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

6G technology does not come from the sky but is an expansion of 5G development. China has been successful not only in technology and standards but also applications with scenarios ranging from smart manufacturing to ports and mining, providing a good foundation for its 6G development, Xiang said.

China has built the world's largest optical fiber and mobile broadband networks, and more than 80 percent of administrative villages across the country have 5G access, data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows.

On this basis, Chinese companies are making progress on 5G-A, or 5.5G, which represents a transitional phase between 5G and 6G, with a series of products on show at the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

"In order to race with China, the US should at least make some progress on 5G before reaching for 6G," the expert said.

The US announcement of its 6G principles did not shatter the Chinese telecommunication industry - just the reverse. Right after the principles were unveiled, the shares of many Chinese corresponding companies, including ZTE, closed higher by the daily limit of 10 percent on Tuesday. ZTE's transaction volume was 7.889 billion yuan, a new high for the past seven months.

Experts said that China's approach to telecommunication technology is notably open and encourages international collaboration in the realm of 6G. This stands in stark contrast to the imposition of tech restrictions by the US, which disrupts global supply chains.

In the development of 6G, international cooperation needs to be strengthened to allow more international companies to form an understanding and recognize China's standards in the area. In this case, if the US wants to isolate China's standards, it will be isolating itself, Fu Liang, a Beijing-based tech analyst, told the Global Times in a previous interview.

"If the US refuses to learn from China and open up to cooperation with China, including using more equipment from China, it will be a severe test for the development of 6G in the US, as it has already proved in its confrontation with 5G with China," Ma Jihua, a veteran telecom observer, told the Global Times, calling for more cooperation instead of confrontation or competition.

China's home-made C919 aircraft arrived back in Shanghai on Monday, after making its debut at the Singapore Airshow.

The plane arrived in Singapore on February 17 together with another C919 and three ARJ21 aircraft.

China Eastern Airlines said the C919 was on static display for the public during the air show.

During the six-day show, the booth welcomed more than 20 groups of visitors per day, said Hu Hong, cabin manager of China Eastern Airlines' cabin department. She said that the visitors included heads and senior professionals from aircraft manufacturers, aviation service providers, and upstream and downstream enterprises in the aviation industry chain.

They were very interested in asking about every detail in the cabin, especially the C919's cabin layout, number of passengers, commercial routes, operating data and routes to be opened in the future, Hu said.

China's Tibet Airlines and Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China signed a deal at the airshow for 50 aircraft suitable for high-altitude plateaus - 40 C919 and 10 ARJ21 jets.

A sea-rail intermodal train loaded with 100 TEUs of thermos cups, folding chairs and other goods departs from a train station in Jinhua City, East China's Zhejiang Province, and heads for Ningbo Zhoushan Port, to ship overseas on February 23, 2024. It is the station's first freight train trip after resumption of work following the Spring Festival. Photo: VCG

As the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported last week the Chinese economy expanded by 5.2 percent in 2023 from the previous year, several Western media outlets immediately cast doubt over the reading, casting it in a negative light and seized the opportunity to wage a smear campaign on China's economic growth.

The way some leading Western newspapers describe China's 2023 GDP data carries a pessimistic connotation, which Chinese analysts said is in the tradition of their long-standing biased reporting on China, which serves their ulterior and sinister motives.

Upon a closer inspection, people will find out that such a narrative tends to be diminishing China's hard-won economic achievement in its successful emergence from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, by overstating the troubles China's economy faces.

These are new rounds of so-called cognitive warfare against China, an important means for Western anti-China forces to attack and discredit the country, Chinese analysts pointed out.

After the NBS's 2023 GDP and other data were published, the Wall Street Journal, in a report entitled "China's Economy Limps Into 2024," alleged that China's growth will be "subpar until property market and income growth find a firmer footing."

The New York Times, meanwhile, published an essay entitled "China's Economy Is in Serious Trouble," in which the author, noted American economist Paul Krugman described that "the US economy vastly outperformed expectations in 2023," but "the story has been very different" in China.

Misinformation at work

While China's economy faces drag from certain sectors, such as a correction in the property sector, the wording and connotation carried in the Western media reports seem to be misinformation upon closer examination, analysts said.

China's 5.2-percent growth in 2023 far exceeded an estimated global average of 3-percent growth and China will likely continue to be the largest growth engine for the global economy, with a contribution of more than 30 percent to the world economy, Kang Yi, head of NBS, told a State Council Information Office press conference on January 17.

As a matter of fact, China's GDP growth is clearly one of the highest growth rates reported across the world's major economies. Compared to a mere 3.0-percent rise in 2022, the 5.2-percent growth in 2023 is both substantial and impressive, meeting Chinese government's preset target and in line with the projections by a wide poll of economists.

Moreover, according to estimates by some analysts, China is among the fastest growing major economies in the world, measured in the four years after the pandemic, growing at more than double the rate of the US and several times faster than the eurozone.

Not only China maintained a sound economic growth in 2023, the country is also poised to achieve good growth rates in 2024 and beyond.

China's economic growth is expected to reach around 5 percent in 2024, Li Daokui, director of Tsinghua University's Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking, told the Global Times on January 20.

Analysts expected stable economic growth in China in 2024, to be mainly fueled by supportive macro policies, and accelerated consumption and investment.

China's economy is expected to run smoothly in 2024, with annual GDP growth of about 5.3 percent, the Center for Forecasting Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the government think tank, said in a forecast report published on January 9.

Ulterior purposes

Analysts said the twisted narratives adopted by the Western media showed their renewed efforts to interplay with positions held by the US politicians on the so-called "China collapse" theory, to scare investors away from China in the sphere of increasingly important financial competition in which the US deem China as a threat to its supremacy and hegemony.

Ma Jihua, a veteran telecom observer, told the Global Times on Wednesday that as the US government's endeavor to suppress China's technology development has to a large extent failed, demonstrated by China's steady expansion in mature semiconductor chips.

And, increasingly, the focus of competition is being shifted to the financial front, in which media misinformation plays a key role.

"Since last year, the US stock market has been on an upward trend, regardless of the economic woes the US economy had. It seems neither weak economic data nor a pending fiscal crisis that festers the economy can prevent the US stock market from going higher and higher," Ma said.

As the US stock market became "too big to fail," Western politicians, financial institutions and media are motivated to spin narratives that can shepherd capital away from China and into the US, and this tactic will not only serve to buttress the precarious performance of the US stock market, but hurt that of China's, observers noted.

Some Western media pundits also weighed in, delving into narratives to prove that China's economy is in dire straits, in the hopes to frighten away China's business partners and international investors interested in buying Chinese yuan-denominated assets and diversifying their investment portfolios to reduce their holdings of US dollar assets.

Deeply rooted in their zero-sum mentality, misinformation has become a tool in the overall US strategy to suppress China's development, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"Some Western media outlets have used this occasion to once again distort the development of the Chinese economy in both quantity and quality terms," Li Haidong said. "They may hope their way of story-telling could sow discontent and instability among Chinese over the country's economic future."

"In finance, confidence is paramount. Whoever commands confidence and market expectation command resources. Economies that face destabilization will see resources flee away," Li Haidong said, noting that the reporting of China's 2023 GDP once again showed that Western media has been instrumental in the West's China-smearing campaign that is a far shot from fact.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) pledged to take more powerful and effective measures to stabilize the market and boost confidence during its 2024 work meeting held on Thursday and Friday.

The conference conveyed a proactive approach to addressing the concerns of investors, with a commitment to maintaining market stability and intensifying the crackdown on unlawful practices, analysts said.

Efforts will be made to enhance the internal stability of the capital market and establish effective mechanisms to maintain its smooth operation, the CSRC said.

Among the key takeaways from the conference were an emphasis on an investor-centric approach, coordination between stability and progress, and integrated promotion of strong regulation, risk prevention, and development.

The CSRC said it will improve regulatory rules such as issuance pricing, quantitative trading, and margin trading to protect the rights of investors, especially smaller and individual investors.

Additionally, it will promote the assessment system for state-owned enterprises based on their market value and reinforce the regular delisting mechanism, promoting survival of the fittest.

The CSRC said it will increase efforts to combat fraud, stock manipulation and insider trading in the capital market. It will also intensify investigations into wrongdoing and impose more severe penalties on lawbreakers.

Efforts will be made to push for the sound implementation of a registration-based system for stock issuance, strengthen effective supervision throughout the entire process of issuance and listing and improve relevant mechanisms and arrangements, it said.

The CSRC also pledged to promote the integration of strong regulation, risk prevention and development, while coordinating risk control and providing appropriate financing support.

The Shanghai Composite Index closed on Friday at 2910.22 points, up 0.14 percent, achieving a four-day winning streak. The Shenzhen Component Index closed at 8762.33 points, down 1.06 percent. The tech heavy ChiNext Index closed at 1682.48 points, down 2.23 percent.

South Korean chip maker SK Hynix has dismissed rumors that it is selling its factory in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, which mainly produces 3D NAND flash memory. It said it remains focused on the company's business in China.

"We do not intend to sell our Dalian factory in China at all," the company said in a statement on Tuesday, according to a report by guancha.com.

In light of trade restrictions and the US' intensifying chip war, SK Hynix said that it will maintain its China operations, while abiding by regulations and laws in the jurisdictions in which it does business. The firm is the world's second-largest memory chip maker.

It also vowed to make further contributions to the development and stabilization of the semiconductor industry, the report said.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that SK Hynix had been affected by the US' export control policy and was considering the sale of its Dalian factory, which the Seoul-based company acquired for $9 billion from US technology company Intel in December 2020.

South Korea's economy is heavily reliant on the semiconductor sector. That makes it especially vulnerable to Washington's drive to restrict supplies to China and constrain Beijing's access to key chip technology, the Bloomberg report said.

Against the backdrop of mounting pressure from the US on Seoul and other countries to isolate China from global tech supply chains, this is the second time the South Korean manufacturer has denied rumors about the upcoming sale of the factory in Dalian.

In April last year, the company described "the rumored sale" of the Dalian plant as "unsubstantiated," saying construction of the Dalian facility "will be completed as planned," South China Morning Post reported.

According to a Business Korea report, China accounts for a significant portion of sales for South Korean semiconductor manufacturers, and SK Hynix's revenue from sales to China peaked at nearly 47 percent of the total in 2019.

In May 2022, the firm announced it would build a new wafer manufacturing base in Dalian to produce 3D NAND flash memory, further expanding its business in China after acquiring Intel's assets in the region.

The new manufacturing facility will promote the competitive power of its local capacity as well as securing supplies in the Chinese market, according to Chung Eun-tae, president of SK Hynix China.

He noted that China is an important partner for SK Hynix and the company has been continuing its investment in its existing facilities in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu Province and Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.