At a BYD factory production line, the humanoid robot Walker S1 from Ubtech is deftly sorting materials and installing components. In Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei, the electronic parts needed to assemble such a robot can be sourced in just one hour. This tight link between engineers and the supply chain is accelerating the journey of robotics from blueprint to reality.

Shifting focus to the Huangpu Comprehensive Bonded Zone in Guangzhou, a drone laden with保税镜片 (bonded lenses) takes off, landing precisely at a processing plant 13 kilometers away just 30 minutes later. The "low-altitude + bonded" intelligent logistics model is safeguarding and accelerating advanced manufacturing.

These dynamic practices from various industrial sectors are continually expanding the depth and breadth of integrated development between manufacturing and services in Guangdong.

On February 24th, the first working day after the Spring Festival holiday, Guangdong convened its "First Meeting" for the fourth consecutive year. This year's gathering centered on the "coordinated development of manufacturing and services," sounding the charge for the inaugural year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

This theme builds upon previous years, maintaining continuity with the focuses of the last three meetings—"Rebuilding a New Guangdong," "Mutual Reinforcement Between Industry and Technology," and "Constructing a Modern Industrial System." It fully demonstrates Guangdong's strategic resolve to steadfastly follow its blueprint and solidly promote high-quality development.

Amid the turbulent waves of global industrial competition, Guangdong must accelerate the synergistic coexistence of manufacturing and services and swiftly advance industrial upgrading to forge a robust "steel frame" capable of weathering storms and stirring the powerful spring tide of high-quality development.

**Powerful Partnership Expands Development Space**

Economists widely agree that the more developed an economy, the higher the proportion of services—particularly producer services—in its GDP, and the tighter their integration with manufacturing.

Consider smartphone manufacturing: a phone priced at 9,000 yuan might only yield 3,000 yuan for the manufacturer in the production stage, with the remainder flowing to R&D, design, branding, sales, and other service-oriented segments.

Globally, emerging and future industries like artificial intelligence and robotics are fiercely contested, accompanied by waves of "re-industrialization" among nations. The United States has rolled out intensive industrial policies and even wielded tariff "clubs" to push for manufacturing repatriation. Germany launched the "Made for Germany" initiative, making substantial investments in digitalization and Industry 4.0. Japan aims to achieve "Society 5.0" through its Connected Industries strategy and has nearly tripled its budget for chip and AI support to $79 billion for the 2026 fiscal year.

The essence of this contest is to use the coordinated development of manufacturing and services as a lever to counter industrial hollowing-out and seize the competitive high ground.

Between 2020 and 2025, the share of China's producer services value-added in GDP rose from 30.3% to 34.4%. However, compared to Western developed nations, where this share often reaches 40% to 50%, there remains significant room for growth.

Promoting the deep integration of manufacturing and services is a crucial measure for China to align with industrial trends and sustain economic momentum. In this regard, Guangdong, with its solid foundation and prominent advantages, is well-positioned to take a leading role.

As a major manufacturing province, Guangdong hosts all 31 major manufacturing categories, and the operating revenue of its industrial enterprises above a designated size has consistently ranked first nationally. Recently, Guangdong's ultra-high-definition video industry achieved a historic milestone, becoming the province's tenth trillion-yuan industrial cluster.

Guangdong also perennially leads the nation in services. In 2025, the provincial services sector's value-added exceeded 8.4 trillion yuan, accounting for over one-tenth of the national total—the highest in China for 41 consecutive years. The number of accounting firms, law firms, tax advisory firms, and inspection and testing institutions all rank first nationally, indicating a highly comprehensive service system.

To accelerate the development of a more internationally competitive modern industrial system, Guangdong must now further enhance the synergy between manufacturing and services, allowing this "powerful partnership" to generate stronger combined force and explore broader development space.

The "First Meeting" at the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, focusing on this theme, not only charts a course for industrial optimization and upgrading but also represents a strategic move by Guangdong to ascend the global value chain.

**"Building Bridges and Ships" to Solidify Manufacturing's Foundational Role**

Making manufacturing the cornerstone is the root and soul of Guangdong's industrial development—a strategic foundation that must be consistently upheld. The coordinated development of manufacturing and services serves as the "bridge" and "ship" for successfully maintaining this cornerstone, providing an effective pathway for manufacturing to advance towards the high end of the global value chain.

This "bridge" is anchored on one end in the rich soil of manufacturing and connects on the other end to diverse services like R&D, branding, marketing, finance, and logistics. This "ship" carries Guangdong's manufacturing prowess towards higher value segments, setting sail for global markets.

In the process of building a more internationally competitive modern industrial system, Guangdong, as the top provincial economy, has a clear strategy for addressing bottlenecks such as manufacturing being "large but not strong" and the relatively low level of integration between the two sectors: build bridges to open roads, and construct ships to sail the seas.

Last year, Guangdong issued the "Several Measures on Promoting the Deep Integration of Manufacturing and Producer Services," proposing to accelerate the innovative development of service-oriented manufacturing. It advocates for a shift from purely manufacturing to "manufacturing + service," and from simply selling products to selling "products + services."

Standing at the new starting point of the 15th Five-Year Plan period's opening year, Guangdong is resolutely shouldering its responsibility to lead, demonstrate, and bear major burdens, accelerating the deployment and advancement of this work.

The recently released Guangdong "15th Five-Year Plan" recommendations further propose implementing actions to expand and enhance the services sector, promoting the deep integration of modern services with advanced manufacturing and modern agriculture.

This year's provincial government work report calls for promoting the servitization of manufacturing and the "manufacturization" of services, using the upgrade of the services sector to promote and support the optimization and upgrading of the entire industrial system.

The "First Meeting" will further build consensus, driving the services sector to empower high-quality manufacturing development with unprecedented depth and breadth.

Across industrial frontlines throughout the province, manufacturing and services are advancing hand-in-hand, resonating in sync, and unleashing vibrant energy.

In the world's first "Lighthouse Factory" for new energy vehicles, AI, big data, and robots work in concert, boosting production efficiency by 50%, reducing manufacturing costs by 58%, and rolling a new vehicle off the line every 53 seconds.

At Marco Polo Holdings' smart tile factory, fully automated production lines collaborate precisely with digital systems. Over ten factories, from Qingyuan to the United States, are networked via an intelligent control system, doubling per capita output compared to five years ago.

After-sales service is the "last mile" for the globalization of industrial intelligence. The "Equipment Maintenance Assistant Intelligent Agent," developed by Rootcloud, leverages three core engines—intelligent diagnosis, intelligent translation, and intelligent search—enabling engineers to pinpoint issues faster. It cuts fault diagnosis time by 50% and improves repair efficiency by 30%, addressing pain points in overseas after-sales service for Guangdong-made and China-made products going global.

From empowering manufacturing to improve quality and efficiency to helping Guangdong and national products reach global markets, the integration of the two sectors is stimulating new动能 (kinetic energy) and opportunities, creating a powerful engine for Guangdong to cultivate new quality productive forces and seize the high ground in future industries.

The "National AI Application Pilot Base (Mobile Terminal Direction)," jointly built by Shenzhen and Dongguan and led by China Unicom, leverages the dual-city synergy of "Shenzhen Innovation + Dongguan Manufacturing." It is establishing a fully domestic full-stack technological capability system, aiming to solidify China's AI core foundation in the smart terminal field and overcome "chokepoint" technological challenges.

Benefiting from application scenarios covering vast numbers of terminals like smartphones and drones, the base has already served over 50,000 smart terminal enterprises, capturing over 50% of the global terminal market share, making it the pilot base with the widest reach in China.

As the "bridge" becomes sturdier and the "ship" sails more steadily, Guangdong will ride the powerful momentum of sectoral integration to break through the waves and navigate towards broader industrial blue oceans.

**Mutual Empowerment Helps Guangdong Seize the Initiative**

The coordinated development of manufacturing and services is by no means a one-way empowerment from services to manufacturing; it is a two-way endeavor where both industries mutually benefit and enhance each other.

On one hand, only by deeply embedding its "tentacles" into the frontlines of industries like advanced manufacturing can the services sector become truly "knowledgeable" and provide more robust support for manufacturing.

Serving over 600,000 manufacturing enterprises annually and contributing to the creation of 12 "Lighthouse Factories"... In recent years, the Midea Group's M.IoT platform has provided digital solutions for enterprises in sectors like automotive manufacturing and electronics, helping many overcome the dilemma of "daring not to transform or not knowing how to transform."

The platform's ability to rapidly enter over 50细分行业 (sub-sectors) within just a few years stems from its foundation in Midea's over 50 years of manufacturing experience, giving it an innate manufacturing "DNA" and a deeper understanding of the sector.

"Since embarking on our digitalization journey in 2012, we have accumulated successful experiences but also paid various trial-and-error costs. We hope to share these valuable lessons so other enterprises can avoid detours," said Jin Jiang, President of Meicloud Data.

On the other hand, the ascent of manufacturing up the value chain will, in turn, compel the services sector to accelerate its own leap towards greater specialization and higher value segments.

"We grew up in Shenzhen; you could say we've always grown up within actual application scenarios," said Guan Jian, Vice President of Shenzhen YouiBot Robotics Technology Co., Ltd..

YouiBot uses robots to provide industrial logistics, inspection, and maintenance solutions for various industrial clients. In Guan Jian's view, Guangdong's strong industrial base offers a massive number of application scenarios, allowing various service solutions to be rapidly validated for commercial viability. This, in turn, "forces" companies to continuously refine their services and accelerate technological iteration.

The mutual empowerment between manufacturing and services is continuously spawning new models and formats, enabling Guangdong to seize the initiative in the global industrial competition raceway.

Professor Li Jiangfan from the School of Management at Sun Yat-sen University believes that the development of producer services cannot proceed in a vacuum, detached from the entities it serves. It must be targeted and develop in an integrated manner with the industries it serves. Particularly, services and manufacturing should not be viewed as opposites, with one-sided development favoring either manufacturing or producer services.

Guangdong's practice proves that only through long-term interaction and collaboration can manufacturing and services develop a high degree of "默契 (tacit understanding)," achieving a "1+1>2" multiplier effect. Amid the roaring engine of "twin-drive," a more vibrant and competitive modern industrial system is rapidly taking shape across the land of Lingnan.