China displaces US as world's top manufacturing nation

China has ended a 110-year-long US leadership, overtaking the country as the world's top manufacturing nation in 2010, reports quoting a research report by US-based consultancy IHS Global Insight said.

China last year accounted for 19.8 per cent of the world's manufacturing output while the US accounted for 19.4 per cent, according to the study.

The findings, however, were far from bleak for US manufacturing, said Mark Killion, IHS's head of world industry services.

"The US has a huge productivity advantage in that it produced only slightly less than China's manufacturing output in 2010 but with 11.5 million workers compared to the 100 million employed in the same sector in China," Killion said.

According to him, much of China's manufacturing output was driven by the Chinese subsidiaries of US companies and was based around US-derived technologies.

China's manufacturing base is dependent on cheaper goods in sectors such as textiles, apparel, appliances, which together make up 25 per cent of Chinese manufacturing, compared to 13 per cent in the United States.