Roadmap for High-Quality Development of Steel Industry in China
Strategic Research Institute
Published on :
25 Mar, 2022, 5:41 am
People's Daily reported that Chinese authorities issued a guideline on promoting the high-quality development of the iron and steel industry, which specify that China’s iron and steel industry aims to basically form a high-quality development pattern featuring reasonable layout and structure, stable supply of resources, advanced technical equipment, high quality products and outstanding brands, high level of intelligentization, strong global competitiveness, as well as green, low-carbon, and sustainable development by 2025. The guideline, which was jointly released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, pointed out that China intends to lift the numerical control rate of key processes of the metallurgical industry and the proportion of digital production equipment in the industry to about 80% and 55%, respectively, and build over 30 smart factories by 2025, which is expected to help the iron and steel industry move into the fast lane of intelligent development. Intelligent transformation is a systematic project that covers all the links of the industry, from purchasing, designing to production and sale. The guidelines also said the country will encourage the import of resource products and semi-finished goods in the industry. China’s imports of resource and semi-manufactured products have been at a high level in recent years, Luo noted, adding that making full use of international and domestic scrap steel resources will help the country reduce dependence on imported iron ore, cut energy consumption and carbon emissions and better guarantee resource security.
Smart manufacturing in China’s iron and steel industry faces problems including uneven capacity, incomplete standards, and insufficient supply of software and hardware. Data suggest that the numerical control rate of key processes of China’s metallurgical industry and the percentage of digital production equipment in the industry reached 65.4% and 47%, respectively, in 2020, signifying a high level of digitalization in the sector.
China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute’s chief engineer Mr Li Xinchuang said “China is now at the later stage of industrialization and the middle and later stage of urbanization; domestic demands for steel products will remain at a high level during the next few years driven by the country’s tasks for achieving industrialization and urbanization. 5G, industrial Internet and other new-generation information technologies provide favorable conditions for the transformation and upgrading of the iron and steel industry.
China Iron and Steel Association’s Vice President Mr Luo Tiejun said “China’s iron and steel industry witnessed significant results in eliminating excess capacity, adjusting structure, and promoting upgrading during the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan period in 2016-2020. During the period, the industry cut crude steel output by over 150 million tonnes. The annual labor productivity of main links in the production of iron and steel products increased from 527 tonnes per person to 850 tonnes per person. In the future, the iron and steel industry should stick to intelligentization-oriented technological innovation, focus on equipment operation and maintenance intelligentization, improvement in production process transparency, overall supply chain collaboration and environmental protection management, and integrate 5G, industrial Internet, artificial intelligence and other new technologies into manufacturing and operation, in a bid to cultivate new competitive strengths.”
China’s iron and steel industry delivered impressive performance and maintained sound growth momentum in 2021. Key large and medium-sized iron and steel enterprises reported cumulative revenue of 6.93 trillion yuan (USD 1.09 trillion), a year-on-year increase of 32.7%; their total profits reached 352.4 billion yuan, rising 59.7% compared with a year before. This is attributed to the robust market demand last year as well as the progress in the supply-side structural reform of the industry in recent years.