Light industry, as opposed to heavy industry, mainly refers to the production of means of subsistence industrial sector. Such as: food, textile, furniture, paper, printing, daily-use chemicals, stationery, cultural goods, sporting goods industry.
There are two distinctive features of China's modern light industry.
The first is mainly manual operation: before the 1950s, in all sectors of light industry, in addition to pulp, paper, sugar, beer, cigarettes, monosodium glutamate and other industries, a small number of enterprises with a higher degree of mechanization, most of the industry, the degree of mechanization of the enterprise is only about 20%.
The second is that most of the technical equipment and major industrial raw materials rely on imports: since the development of modern light industry in China is about half a century later than that of the advanced capitalist countries.
Scientific and technological strength is very weak, coupled with the lack of a foundation for heavy industry, the development of light industry does not have the backing of the service, so the majority of the technical equipment used in light industry is purchased from abroad. 70% to 80% of the chemical and metal raw materials needed for light industry rely on imports.
In the course of about seventy years of history, China's modern light industry development rate is quite slow, when the development of the industry only thirty or so, categories are very incomplete, is such a modern light industry into the 1950s.
Expanded Information:
Levels of Light Industry
Light industry is the industry that produces means of consumption, which can be divided into 3 levels as follows:
1. In the industrial society Pre-industrial light industry is based on agricultural and animal husbandry products as raw materials, such as textiles, food, paper and so on;
2, in the industrial society of light industry is based on heavy industrial products as raw materials, such as bicycles, watches, automobiles and so on;
3, in the knowledge-based society of light industry is a high-tech light industry, such as multimedia, home robots and so on.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Light Industry