Tapping the economic value of e-waste

If China is to realize its ambition of being an ecological civilization, while still modernizing and upgrading its economy, the electronics industry provides one of the biggest opportunities.

China's economy has been driven by manufacturing across a number of sectors for decades. In the Chinese manufacturing sector, there have been long-term efforts to move up the value chain from producing low value goods to developing value added products and globally recognized brands. This includes plans to shift from labor-intensive manufacturing, to automated, highly efficient industrial systems which create greater resource productivity. In 2015, the State Council, China's Cabinet, made this intention official with the Made in China 2025 plan.

Nowhere is this vision more relevant than in the electronics sector. China is already a leader in the production of electronics. Roughly 70 percent of the world's mobile phones are produced in China and many of the largest electronics companies manufacture their products in China. Contract manufacturers like Pegatron and Foxconn have become huge companies and employers. Chinese companies are also world leaders in the sector, Lenovo and Huawei, and newcomers such as Oppo and Xiaomi are recognized as some of the biggest brands in the PC and mobile markets. Electronic components and devices are the enabling technology of modernizing the manufacturing industry itself, serving as the backbone for the industrial internet of things and robotics, leading to greater automation and efficiency.