'pillar industries' is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It is typically used to refer to industries that are key to the success of a country's economy. For example, you could say: "The US economy relies on its pillar industries, such as finance, manufacturing, and technology."
China has pumped billions into "pillar" industries such as telecoms, information technology, car manufacturing and steel.
Electroplating industry annually produces numerous plated workpieces for U.S. pillar industries.
The pillar industries are those manufacturing machinery, electronics, petrochemicals, textiles, foodstuffs, and building materials with the processing industry as a priority.
But the party has also clung tenaciously to the most profitable pillar industries and the financial system, and it is not always easy to distinguish the biggest private companies from their state-run counterparts in China's hybrid economy.
As documented in the report by the World Bank and Development Research Centre of the State Council of China (2013), SOEs have a close connection with the Chinese government by which the Chinese economy is controlled, occupy pillar industries where the entry threshold for private firms is extremely high in practice, and enjoy preferential access to finance and other important inputs.
In 1997, the Chinese State Council announced "Notice on the Further Deepening Reform of Housing System and the Acceleration of Housing Construction", which clearly positioned real estate as one of the nation's pillar industries; from this point onwards, land development has become a major driving force in provincial economic development (Li and Fan 2013).
In 2009, the State Council designated tourism a "pillar industry".
"The car industry was long ago designated as a pillar industry for China.
In 2005, Beijing designated steel as a pillar industry for the Chinese economy.
As a national pillar industry, manufacturing Engineering strongly pushes the economy development of China.
The state's share of coal mining, a pillar industry, fell from 66% in 2006 to 50% in 2011.
