The Industrial Development Report 2002/2003, released by UNIDO in Beijing Wednesday, said China's competitive industrial performance (CIP) had greatly improved since 1985, with its rank jumping from 61 in 1985 to 37 in 1998, according to a CIP index comparison of 87 countries and regions.

The CIP index measures the ability of countries to produce and export competitively, said the UNIDO report.

China's industrial added-value had increased 12 times over thatof 23 years ago when it adopted the policy of reform and opening-up, with an annual increase of 11.5 percent, said Xu Lin, deputy director of the Department of Development Planning of China's State Development Planning Commission.

Xu said the key factor in growth was the opening of industrial markets not only to the state-owned sector, but also to collective, private and foreign investors, and to support them in finance and policy.

Xu said in the next 20 years, China planned to realize a new pattern of industrialization which involved more high technology, better profits, lower resource consumption, less pollution and better use of human resources.

The flow of overseas capital and techniques into China opened ways for China's industrial sector to latch on to global value chains, in which all enterprises in the global scope perform related activities to bring out a product.

Statistics from China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) show that by the end of September, nearly 415,000 foreign-funded firms had been set up in China, with a total actual investment of 434.78 billion US dollars. Frederic Richard, director of the UNIDO strategic research and economy branch, said the industrial development report advised all developing countries to promote productivity growth through concerted innovation and learning.

(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2002)