Instrument industry in China has developed rapidly. At present, it has a richer variety of products, an increasingly expanding industry scale, a growing industrial system with strong producing and developing capabilities, and dramatic rise of production and marketing, but there are still some potential limitations. The following are some constraints on development in instrument industry. According to the statistics of the department concerned, China became the second largest instrument producer in Asia except Japan in 2006. With rapid development in these years.

China is undergoing an important historical stage, in which its industrial structure is changed through technological innovation and national economy is enhanced from all sides. Measuring through instrument is way for humans to obtain information from the natural world. Currently, China depends more on importing advanced instruments, but the most advanced instruments are generally developed in labs, and can not be purchased in the market. China can not depend wholly on importing instruments if it wants to launch the first-rate technological innovation activities. It must develop the most advanced instruments from now on, and try to offer the most advanced instruments for scientific and technical personnel at home after years’ efforts. The scale and quality of enterprises restricts the industry’s development. In 2011, there are 5521 enterprises above designated size with 927 thousand workers, total assets of RMB 450.7 billion yuan, gross industrial output value of RMB 525.3 billion yuan, sales revenue of RMB 511.6 billion yuan, and total profit of RMB 38.7 billion yuan. The overall strength of enterprises in China has been enhanced obviously, but unevenness in development still exists. Quality of enterprises limits the industry’s development.

GDP has great influence on the industry. Although instrument industry has developed quickly these years, it is mostly influenced by GDP. The unhealthy development pattern that solely pursues enterprises’ speed of development neglects technological innovation and quality of products, and brings many unhealthy factors to the industrial development. Instrument control technology is the important front for developed countries to keep preeminence. Another feature of instrument industry is that a big trade deficit exists, which is the biggest one in the 13 mechanical industries. During the implementation of Eleventh Five-Year Plan, import of instrument control products kept an annual growth rate of 30%; in the interim, import was over RMB 10 billion yuan, and in the final stage, import was over RMB 15 billion yuan; it is estimated that the annual import growth of instrument control products is 20 %, and the import volume in the last year of Eleventh Five-Year Plan is over RMB 20 billion yuan. However, in terms of pivotal instruments, China still lags behind developed countries.