BEIJING — China has published guidelines for industries that create new materials, such as graphene, seeking to improve innovation, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said Jan 23.

The guidelines said that China aimed for the stable supply of advanced basic materials by 2020, to provide 70 percent of critical and strategic new materials the country needs, while making technological breakthroughs in frontier materials, such as graphene and nanophase materials.

“The new material industry is strategic and fundamental for the national economy. China should make great efforts to improve new materials to shore up industrial development in the critical period of becoming a world manufacturing power,” said MIIT Minister Miao Wei.

The output value of China’s new material industry has more than tripled in five years to nearly 2 trillion yuan ($292 billion) as of 2015, official data shows.

The guidelines were jointly composed by the MIIT, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance.