Last month in this magazine we ran a story by Agostino von Hassell with the headline, "How Much Does Manufacturing Matter?" In it Mr. von Hassell points to a lot of production and trade data that highlight how manufacturing has become a smaller fraction of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Specifically, in 1950 manufacturing accounted for about 48 percent of the GDP, then known as the Gross National Product (GNP); by 2001 that number had dropped to 18 percent. Comparatively, in China last year manufacturing accounted for 50 percent of that country's GDP. This apparent disparity, by extension, goes to show how much China is encroaching on the injection molding industry. The decline of manufacturing in the U.S. may, in some ways, be an inevitable part of the maturation of our economy and society. But in thousands of other ways, manufacturing is still a vital and important way of life that shouldn't simply be waved off.

While China's advances are undeniable, there is still room for optimism. Look closely at the numbers: China's 2001 GDP was $1.076 trillion; manufacturing, 50 percent of that, is valued at $538 billion. The U.S. 2001 GDP was $9.882 trillion; manufacturing, 18 percent of that, is valued at $1.779 trillion. In other words, the total value of goods and services produced by the U.S. manufacturing community in 2001 was $703 billion larger than China's entire GDP in the same year.

That, it seems to me, is something to build on.