Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. production of products which are either heavy in weight or in the processes leading to their production
Wikipedia
Heavy industry is industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, and huge buildings); or complex or numerous processes. Of those factors, heavy industry often involves higher capital intensity than light industry does, and it is also often more heavily cyclical in investment and employment.
Traditional examples from the mid-19th century through the early 20th included steelmaking, artillery production, locomotive erection, machine tool building, and the heavier types of mining. From the late 19th century through the mid-20th, as the chemical industry and electrical industry developed, they involved components of both heavy industry and light industry, which was soon also true for the automotive industry and the aircraft industry. Modern shipbuilding (since steel replaced wood) is considered heavy industry. In the post– World War II era, construction of large systems, such as skyscrapers, large dams, and large rockets, is also often classed as heavy industry.
Many East Asian countries rely on heavy industry as part of their overall economies. Among Japanese and Korean firms with "heavy industry" in their names, many are also manufacturers of aerospace products and defense contractors to their respective countries' governments such as Japan's Fuji Heavy Industries and Korea's Hyundai Rotem, a joint project of Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Heavy Industries.
Heavy industry is also sometimes a special designation in local zoning laws.
Usage examples of "heavy industry".
Austria had little heavy industry of its own, although low taxes and loose genetic-engineering laws had attracted investment from the biotechnology companies after the Warming.
This will likely be a separate heavy industry redeveloped parallel to the more familiar and typical applications.
The indices of production of heavy industry are the most dramatic.
You know we should be concentrating on knocking out the heavy industry.
We'd have to buy all that from off planet, there's no heavy industry here to make engines even if the ecology could absorb them, but that doesn't matter to the FP.
As a result, the little parts-companies were not the showcases of Japanese heavy industry that other nationalities had come to see and respect on worldwide television.
Each had his rationale for power, whether it was Defense, or Interior, or Heavy Industry, or in his particular case, friendship and general experience.
It's the zone around the Mystic River where most of New England's heavy industry is located.