Big signal! In 2025, the "Government Work Report" once again named biological manufacturing, and the trillion-level industry tuyere is coming!

Chinese Premier Li Qiang delivers the government work report at the opening of the third session of the 14th National People's Congress in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2019.

After last year's "Government Work Report" mentioned biological manufacturing, this year's "Government Work Report" once again named biological manufacturing.

The 2025 government task mentioned that the development of new quality productivity in accordance with local conditions, and accelerate the construction of a modern industrial system. We will foster and strengthen emerging industries and future industries. Establish a future industrial investment growth mechanism, and cultivate future industries such as bio-manufacturing, quantum technology, embodied intelligence, and 6G.

The so-called biological manufacturing is a large-scale production model based on industrial biotechnology as the core, combined with the principles of engineering technology, through enzymes, microbial cells and other biological components or organisms for material transformation and processing, and its main products include but are not limited to bio-based materials, biological chemicals, bioenergy and biomedicine.

Since 2022, biological manufacturing has become a key development area that the Party Central Committee and The State Council attach great importance to, in the past four years, what has changed in the central reference to biological manufacturing? What signal does this year's latest work mission send?

Behind the renewal of the formulation: the strategic upgrading of the industry

Over the past four years, the central formulation of bio-manufacturing has become more and more specific, reflecting the deepening of the country's strategic positioning for bio-manufacturing.

In December 2022, the Central Economic Work Conference stressed that it is necessary to accelerate the research and development and application of cutting-edge technologies such as bio-manufacturing, green and low-carbon, and new energy.

The Central Economic Work Conference in 2023 proposed to build a number of strategic emerging industries such as bio-manufacturing, commercial aerospace, and low-altitude economy, and for the first time identified bio-manufacturing as a "strategic emerging industry."

The 2024 Government Work Report pointed out that we will actively build new growth engines such as bio-manufacturing, commercial aerospace, and low-altitude economy.

In 2025, the "Government Work Report" mentioned that the establishment of future industrial investment growth mechanism, and the cultivation of future industries such as bio-manufacturing, quantum technology, embodied intelligence, and 6G.

From "cutting-edge technology research and development and application promotion", to "creating strategic emerging industries and new growth engines", to this year's statement of "accelerating the construction of a modern industrial system and establishing a future industrial growth mechanism", this progressive change fully demonstrates that the central government's strategic planning and deployment for the development of the bio-manufacturing industry is deepening. It shows that the country attaches great importance to the potential value and broad prospects of the bio-manufacturing industry.

It can be expected that the future policy support in the field of biological manufacturing will further increase, promote the industry to accelerate into the fast lane of development, and help China to win a new round of global biological manufacturing competition.

From top-level design to breakthrough

At the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the historical node of the "15th Five-Year Plan" planning layout, China's strategic layout in the field of biological manufacturing has demonstrated a clear and distinct phased evolution characteristics.

The 2024 Government Work Report will include bio-manufacturing in the framework of the "new growth engine" and complete the top-level design with a strategic vision.

One year later, the policy orientation has shifted to "establish investment growth mechanism" and "cultivate future industry", from the formulation of development planning to the improvement of long-term mechanism, from the opening of new engines to the in-depth cultivation of industrial ecology, marking the layout of China's biofutrition has completed the in-depth construction from basic construction to ecological optimization, showing the strategic wisdom of the policy system of "seeking a domain and seeking the overall situation". It has injected stronger momentum into the development of the industry.

This in-depth promotion from the macro blueprint to the micro mechanism is inseparable from the technological breakthroughs made in the key fields of biological manufacturing in China.

At present, China's comprehensive level of industrial biotechnology ranks in the forefront of the world, and a number of international leading achievements have emerged. Recently, a Chinese research team revealed for the first time the key principle of bacterial anti-tumor, and synthetic biologically modified bacteria provide a new strategy for future cancer treatment.

With the in-depth layout of the policy and the continuous research, it is believed that more innovative achievements will come out in the future.

In terms of industrialization, bio-manufacturing promotes the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and the cultivation of emerging industries through interdisciplinary integration (such as AI+ biotechnology) and industrial chain reconstruction.

According to statistics, the scale of China's advanced biological manufacturing industry has reached more than one trillion yuan, and the development potential and space in key areas such as biopharmaceutical, biological materials, bioenergy, biological chemicals, and new food manufacturing are very large.

Great power game focus, strategic significance is more significant

The "Government Work Report" stressed that from an international perspective, the world's 100-year changes are accelerating, and the external environment is becoming more complex and severe, which may have a greater impact on China's trade, science and technology and other fields.

At present, with synthetic biology as the representative, biological manufacturing technology has become the strategic highland of science and technology that all countries in the world will fight for, trying to occupy a favorable position in the future competition of bioeconomy.

As early as 2003, the United States has established a blueprint for bio-manufacturing, and in recent years more intensively published the "U.S. Bioeconomy: Policies such as "Chart a Course for a Flexible and Competitive Future" (2022), "Ambitious Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biofuturing" (2023), and "Biofuturing for a Bioeconomy" (2024) are expected to shape the U.S. -led biofuturing industry chain.

Other major countries and economies in the world are also actively layout the development of bioeconomy, the United Kingdom has formulated the "National Vision of Engineering Biology", the European Union, Australia and other actively layout the implementation of "life foundry" and "microbial cell factory" and other plans.

On the back of industrial competition, Western countries led by the United States are gradually increasing their efforts to restrict and suppress our country.

The United States has raised the bioeconomy to the height of national security, and made clear that biotechnology is one of the key technologies prohibited from export, and intends to curb the development of China's biotechnology through scientific and technological sanctions.

Therefore, it is urgent to build an independent, controllable and competitive industrial biotechnology system. Academician Tan Tianwei of the Chinese Academy of Engineering has said: From a certain point of view, the importance of biological manufacturing is no less than chip development.

In the context of unprecedented changes in a century, it is of profound significance for China to elevate biological manufacturing to a strategic height. This is not only a positive response to the global scientific and technological competition pattern, but also an important strategic choice to promote high-quality economic development and ensure national industrial security.

By accelerating the construction of an independent and controllable biological manufacturing technology system, China can take the initiative in the global biological economy competition, break through the external technological blockade, and create a new economic growth pole.

The combination of policies is worth looking forward to, and the industry has ushered in major opportunities

In the "Government Work Report", it is obvious from the scope and intensity that the country attaches great importance to and expects for emerging industries and future industries.

Whether it is "further promoting the development of strategic emerging industry convergence clusters." To carry out large-scale application demonstration actions of new technologies, new products and new scenarios ", or "establish a future industrial investment growth mechanism" and "gradient cultivation of innovative enterprises, support the development of unicorn enterprises and gazelle enterprises", all reflect the vision and determination of the country to develop new quality productivity and build a modern industrial system.

It must be admitted that the development of China's biological manufacturing industry is still facing some key bottlenecks, including large-scale production engineering challenges, relatively high production costs, product quality and consistency control is difficult to improve, the sustainability of raw material supply is insufficient, and interdisciplinary talent shortage.

Looking forward to the future, biological manufacturing needs to break the current development shackles with the breakthrough of synthetic biotechnology as the fulcrum, the intelligent pilot platform as the carrier, the scene open policy as the traction, through the triple leap of "core technology research - manufacturing paradigm innovation - industrial ecological reconstruction".

When the strain design efficiency is improved and the continuous fermentation process is matured to form a resonance, when the high-value utilization of agricultural waste is coordinated with the cost reduction and efficiency increase of bio-based materials, bio-manufacturing will become a strategic plateau for the development of new quality productivity.

It is believed that at the policy end, the full chain support mechanism of "basic research-pilot scale-up - market access" will continue to be improved, and based on the two-wheel drive of technological revolution and institutional innovation, China's bio-manufacturing industry will inject a steady stream of new momentum for the high-quality development of economic and social development, and carve a clear coordinate in the global bio-economy map.