The localization of high-end instruments has always been the weakness of the domestic equipment manufacturing industry. In this year's National Two Sessions, this topic was raised by a number of representatives and members, and triggered widespread discussion.

What is the development status of the instrumentation industry? How to break the high-end scientific instrument market by foreign manufacturers long-term monopoly "embarrassment"? What impact has the "new infrastructure" brought to the development of the instrumentation industry?

Ouyang Jinsong, director of the comprehensive Technical and economic Research Institute of machinery industry instrumentation, has deep feelings about the above problems. He believes that the structural contradictions of China's instrumentation industry are prominent, and it is urgent to break through and improve from the aspects of industry management, technological innovation and industrial development. There are structural contradictions in the instrument industry China Industry News: At present, what is the development status of China's instrument industry? What are the main bottlenecks?

Ouyang Jinsong: Since the "12th Five-Year Plan", China's instrumentation industry has received a large number of support policies from governments at all levels, and has cultivated a group of talents and innovative teams.

In 2019, the number of enterprises above the industry size has exceeded 4,400, and the self-sufficiency rate of the domestic market is close to 60%. At present, China has basically solved the problem of instrument varieties. However, China's instrumentation research and development has been in a tracking state for a long time, basic research has been weak for a long time, and high-end instruments developed by themselves are generally not useful; Instrumentation core components, special materials, and special processes have been ignored for a long time, and products are clustered in the low-end, high-end instrumentation, especially cutting-edge scientific instruments, rely heavily on imports. In my opinion, the instrumentation industry still has development bottlenecks in terms of management, technology and industry.

First, industry management needs to be optimized. At present, China lacks the top-level design and working mechanism of different policies in series of instruments and instruments, and the synergistic force effect is not sufficient. Government departments at all levels have basically not set up a relatively specialized management agency, resulting in the instrument industry information, demand timely and accurate reflection of the government departments of the channels blurred, the management service system scattered, the systematic and integrity of the industry technology development is difficult to guarantee.

Second, the mode of technology research and development needs innovation. Instrument development is a typical intelligence intensive science and technology activity. Instrument enterprises are the core subjects of product innovation and research and development, but China's instrument enterprises generally lack high-end compound talents, but also face the problem of market and efficiency. Some of the little demand, high cost of research and development, but the country needs the instrument technology and products, whether the enterprise is suitable as the main body of research and development, it is worth discussing.

Third, all links of the industrial chain need coordinated development. The development of instruments is difficult, and the development of high-end scientific instruments is even more difficult, which requires continuous investment of long-term funds in all links of the industrial chain, and it is urgent to build a higher level of third-party test and measurement guarantee system. Instrumentation R & D, manufacturing and application related parties should form a closely linked industrial chain closed loop, large machine enterprises should gather a number of core upstream and downstream enterprises, form an industrial cluster, cultivate a number of local core parts manufacturing enterprises, to solve the bottleneck problem of core parts dependent on imports, Huawei's industrial layout in the field of 5G and chip is worth learning. China Industry News: High-end instruments import and export trade deficit is serious, high-end scientific instruments rely on imports for a long time, how do you think to solve?

Ouyang Jinsong: Such import and export trade status is related to all aspects of the instrumentation industry, but also has a great relationship with the development history and industrial base, the need for multi-party coordination, systematic planning of the industry's near and medium and long-term development. In terms of industry management, it is recommended to guide the development model of "manufacturer + user" with policies and systems, strengthen the fine grasp of the external dependence of instrumentation products, long-term planning to research high-end instruments and key core components, give priority to supporting the research and development of imported, blank instrumentation products, and attach importance to the accumulation of manufacturing processes and common technologies. Guide the industry to proactively cooperate with the needs of national economic security and national defense construction and development, effectively and accurately allocate national resources, and promote the much-needed research and development and industrialization of common instrumentation technologies. It is suggested that multi-dimensional coordination of central and local resources should be carried out to coordinate the use of funds and project selection mechanism to avoid multiple duplicate support. In the development of technology, we should pay attention to the research of basic technology and common technology. It is necessary to focus on the future test technology to lead the development of instrumentation products, pay attention to the basic research of test and measurement technology and the development of core basic components of instrumentation. At the same time, in order to create "durable" high-end instruments, it is necessary to increase investment in manufacturing, testing, standards and measurement and other common technology research and development and service platforms, especially for the service platform of cutting-edge new technologies should also be deployed in advance of research and development, by the industry public welfare institutions to undertake construction, overall development of common resources in the industry, strengthen capacity assessment and service performance evaluation. Improve the efficiency of industry resource utilization. Scientific instruments are "short board in short board" China Industry News: Scientific instruments have an extremely important strategic position in basic research, national economy and national defense security.

On July 13, 2018, the second meeting of the Financial and Economic Commission of the CPC Central Committee proposed to "cultivate a number of cutting-edge scientific instrument manufacturing enterprises". What are your best suggestions for achieving this goal? Ouyang Jinsong: If instruments are the short board that restricts China's high-end equipment manufacturing industry, then scientific instruments are the short board in the short board. I think the cultivation of scientific instrument manufacturing enterprises should be promoted in the aspects of talent, capital and technology. In terms of talents, it is recommended to set up a certain proportion of local and enterprise oriented entrusted tasks in national science and technology projects, increase the weight of enterprise and user evaluation in performance evaluation, guide and continue to support high-level scientific instrument talent teams in universities and research institutes, and carry out long-term fixed services for enterprises. Universities and research institutes should encourage scientific instrument enterprises to participate in the personnel training of measurement and control and instrument majors, establish a joint research and joint training system, and take the service of scientific and technological personnel to scientific instrument enterprises as an important basis for title evaluation, job competition, degree evaluation, talent selection, etc.

In terms of financial support for instrument enterprises, through the establishment of a special fund for the development of scientific instrument "specialized" enterprises, loans and other financial methods, to solve some scientific instrument enterprise financing problems, to support the start-up of enterprises, patent productization, engineering research and development of high-end instrument products and application iteration. It is also possible to set up a more professional scientific instrument special guidance fund, track the national scientific instrument related science and technology and industry special, provide free funding, loan discount interest, process subsidies and post-subsidies and other different ways to continue to support its industrialization development. In terms of technological development, we should strengthen the input of international academic exchanges and exhibitions of instruments, optimize the policy of scientific and technological talents to the shore, join international forces to participate in domestic special research and development work, focus on the joint development of scientific instruments with obvious domestic demand and international gaps, carry out scientific instrument technology collaborative research and industrialization promotion in the local industry environment, and accelerate the innovation of scientific instruments. The management department should coordinate with the matching resources, the whole chain deployment of scientific instruments technology research and development and industrialization investment, in accordance with the idea of "consolidating the foundation, building the system, coordinated development, and orderly competition", closely related to the major needs of China's development, and the overall deployment of scientific instruments science and technology special projects and industrial construction. China Industry News: In the first quarter of 2020, due to the impact of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, the profits of most of China's manufacturing enterprises declined or even lost money year-on-year, and the country timely proposed to further vigorously develop "new infrastructure". In your opinion, what impact has the epidemic brought to the instrumentation industry? How can instrument companies use the opportunity of "new infrastructure" to break through difficulties and boost performance?

Ouyang Jinsong: The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the instrumentation industry is mainly reflected in two aspects: industry structure and enterprise operation. The epidemic has exposed the structural and management weaknesses of China's medical and health instrument subdivision industry. On the one hand, high-end medical equipment such as high-flow respiratory humidification therapy equipment and high-frequency ventilators rely on imports, and high-end analytical instruments used in COVID-19 detection are almost also dependent on imports. On the other hand, China can independently meet the temperature gun, infrared thermometer and other low-end medical instruments, but due to the outbreak of the epidemic, resulting in price gouging, indicating that China's instrument industry urgently needs to strengthen industry management, increase the ability to respond to emergencies. The impact of the epidemic on the operation of small and medium-sized enterprises is particularly significant in the instrumentation industry. China's instrumentation industry lacks similar international leading enterprises such as Thermo Fei, Shimadzu, Roche, Fluke, etc., mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, and currently faces common problems such as delayed start, lack of manpower, delayed orders, and market contraction. To this end, it is recommended to respond to the outbreak from the following four aspects.

First, the country should not only continue to cultivate leaders, but also develop specialized individual champions. China's instrumentation industry needs world-class instrumentation manufacturing leading enterprises to lead the development direction of the industry. More importantly, it is necessary to make good use of fiscal, tax, financial and loan policies to protect small and medium-sized enterprises.

The second is to improve the enterprise standard system, improve the enterprise quality assurance system, and avoid the loss of enterprise technology. Affected by the epidemic, instrument companies will also experience brain drain. Encourage the use of enterprise standards to regulate "technical know-how" to avoid key technologies being saved and lost by people. Actively encourage associations, societies, and standard committees to enter corporate services, and help "top" enterprises establish a sound high-level enterprise standard system.

The third is to build industrial clusters and cultivate core component enterprises. The important impact of the epidemic is on logistics, travel and employment. The government should encourage the formation of industrial clusters and support the development of technology and industrial clusters in the advantageous areas of instrumentation. On the other hand, from a worldwide point of view, the epidemic has intensified the restructuring of the global manufacturing industry chain, the instrumentation industry must have a unified bottom line thinking, that is, there can be no "one card is dead" on the industrial chain, we must make great efforts to cultivate domestic components core enterprises, especially involving industrial safety, a single source of instrumentation core parts.

The fourth is to make good use of the "new infrastructure" to pull the role of the instrumentation industry. China's instrumentation enterprises should meet the development needs of "new infrastructure" and accelerate the technological development of new products; Cooperate to improve the hardware design, software development, upstream and downstream applications of instruments and other industrial chain links, promote product independent innovation and iterative optimization; At the same time, it pays attention to basic common technologies such as test requirements, reliability methods, communication transmission, and security requirements.