The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments have issued four stable growth work plans, three of which involve national basic industries.

On August 25th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments jointly released four stable growth work plans for key industries, including petrochemical, steel, building materials, and non-ferrous metal industries, all with implementation deadlines from 2023 to 2024.

These plans are aimed at implementing the decisions and deployments of the Central Economic Work Conference, promoting the State Council to effectively implement a package of policies and follow-up measures to stabilize the economy, promoting the stable operation of the industry, and accelerating high-quality development.

On July 19th this year, Zhao Zhiguo, spokesperson and chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated at the press conference of the State Council Information Office that stable growth will be given a more prominent position, and efforts will be made to accelerate the formulation and implementation of work plans for stabilizing growth in ten key industries, including automobiles, electronics, and steel.

Wang Guoqing, Director of Lange Steel Research Center, told Interface News reporters that compared to the previous "Guiding Opinions on Promoting High Quality Development of the Steel Industry" and "14th Five Year Plan for the Development of Raw Materials Industry", the new plan is to strengthen a single industry and more clearly lead the industry, including refining to the numerical goal of industrial added value.

"In recent years, due to the accelerated pace of changes in the industry environment, domestic and international situations, as well as the transformation of commodities, the shift from long-term policies to policies lasting for 1-2 years has made the goals more clear and easier to achieve." Wang Guoqing said.

From the perspective of the petrochemical and chemical industry, the proposed plan aims to maintain stable growth in the past two years, with an average annual industrial value-added growth rate of about 5%. The main business revenue of the petrochemical and chemical industry (excluding oil and gas extraction) is planned to reach 15 trillion yuan by 2024, with ethylene production exceeding 50 million tons and fertilizer production (net) stabilizing at around 55 million tons.

Among them, ethylene is one of the largest chemical products in the world, and its production is an important indicator of a country's level of petrochemical development.

The 2022 Economic Operation Report of the China Petrochemical Federation shows that the ethylene production capacity in 2022 was 46.75 million tons/year, with a production capacity of only 28.975 million tons; The amount of chemical fertilizer (converted to pure) is 55.733 million tons, which is basically consistent with the target stated in the document.

Based on this calculation, the ethylene production next year needs to increase by more than 70% compared to 2022. According to the statistics of the Light Hydrocarbon Aromatics Committee of the Petrochemical Federation, 13 enterprises including Sanjiang Jiahua, Yulong Petrochemical, Inner Mongolia Baofeng, ExxonMobil (Huizhou), and Guangdong Petrochemical will increase their ethylene production capacity in the next two years, with a total production capacity of 13.7 million tons.

At the National Petrochemical Industry Economic Situation Analysis Conference held in early August this year, Fu Xiangsheng, Vice President of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, analyzed that in the first half of the year, the petrochemical industry showed three "double declines" characteristics, including a "double decline" in revenue and profit, a "double decline" in import and export volume, and a "double decline" in product prices year-on-year and month on month. It can be seen that the current stable growth task facing the petrochemical and chemical industry is still arduous.

From the perspective of specific measures, the plan proposes that the petrochemical industry should promote the completion and operation of five or more major petrochemical projects under construction by the end of 2024; Accelerate the elimination and exit of outdated production capacity such as atmospheric and vacuum distillation units with an annual output of 2 million tons or less that do not comply with national industrial policies.

Another fundamental and pillar industry, the steel industry, has also proposed growth targets.

According to the plan, in 2023, the supply and demand of the steel industry will maintain a dynamic balance, the fixed assets investment of the whole industry will maintain a steady growth, and the economic benefits will be significantly improved. The industry's R&D investment will strive to reach 1.5%, and the industrial added value will increase by about 3.5%; In 2024, the development environment and industrial structure of the industry will be further optimized, and the level of high-end, intelligent, and green development will continue to improve. The industrial added value will increase by more than 4%.

From the perspective of specific measures, the plan proposes to accelerate the process of ultra-low emission transformation in steel enterprises and support them in striving for A-level environmental performance; At the same time, support enterprises that have completed ultra-low emission transformation, and collaborate with related industries such as ferroalloys, coking, chemical, building materials, and electricity to build a collaborative "consortium" for pollution reduction and carbon reduction; Increase support for experimental verification and industrialization of low-carbon common technologies such as hydrogen metallurgy and low-carbon metallurgy.

In terms of electric furnace short process steelmaking, it is planned to establish evaluation standards for electric furnace short process enterprises and scrap steel processing and distribution enterprises, and select about 5 advantageous benchmark enterprises to form a scalable industrial model.

Regarding the issue of ensuring upstream iron ore, the plan is proposed for both domestic and foreign channels. Including fully leveraging the coordination mechanism for domestic iron ore development, accelerating the start and production of key domestic iron ore projects, expanding production capacity, and ensuring the normal production of compliant mining enterprises; At the same time, we encourage eligible enterprises to carry out overseas cooperation on iron ore resources, especially to promote cooperation with neighboring countries in the exploration and exploitation of iron ore resources.

In addition, the plan also encourages industry leading enterprises to implement mergers and acquisitions, build world-class super large steel enterprise groups, promote the optimization of national steel production capacity layout, encourage steel enterprises to carry out cross regional and cross ownership mergers and acquisitions, and change the "small and scattered" situation of the steel industry in some regions.

The building materials industry is also an important basic industry of the national economy.

The stable growth work plan released this time proposes that in 2023 and 2024, the building materials industry aims to achieve an industrial value-added growth rate of around 3.5% and 4%, respectively. Green building materials, mineral functional materials, inorganic non-metallic new materials and other large-scale enterprises have an average annual growth rate of over 10% in operating revenue. The CNC rate of key processes in major industries has reached over 65%. The cement, glass, and ceramic industries account for more than 15% of production capacity above the energy efficiency benchmark level, and the level of high-end, intelligent, and green industries continues to improve.

The plan proposes to promote the green, intelligent, and coupled development of the building materials industry. This includes focusing on industries such as cement, flat glass, building and sanitary ceramics, glass fiber, etc., and releasing energy conservation and carbon reduction technology catalogs and application guidelines on an annual basis; Catalogue of products and technologies encouraged for promotion and application in the building materials industry; Support the comprehensive utilization of waste in various regions and promote the coupled development of industries within the region.

In addition to the three fundamental industries mentioned above, the non-ferrous metal industry involves a wide range of varieties, wide applications, and outstanding strategic value, and is considered an important support for the development of strategic emerging industries and national defense technology industries.

The goals proposed in the plan involve various metals such as copper, aluminum, lithium, magnesium, nickel, etc. The main goal is to strive for a year-on-year increase of about 5.5% in the added value of the non-ferrous metal industry in 2023 and a growth of over 5.5% in 2024.

Among them, from 2023 to 2024, the production of major products such as copper and aluminum maintained stable growth, with an average annual increase of about 5% in the production of ten non-ferrous metals; Positive progress has been made in the development of domestic resources such as copper and lithium, and the quality of supply for non-ferrous metal deep processing products has been further improved, achieving a basic dynamic balance between supply and demand; The average annual energy consumption per unit of copper, lead and other smelting products has decreased by more than 2%.

From the supply side perspective, the plan proposes to accelerate the development and utilization of strategic resources, strengthen the supply and price stability of key products, and support the research and application of key materials.

Among them, it is required to increase domestic exploration and development efforts for scarce strategic minerals such as copper, aluminum, nickel, lithium, and platinum group metals, and formulate an overall plan for the development of key resources and industries such as lithium; Build a platform for upstream and downstream supply and demand docking, guide non-ferrous metal resource development and smelting enterprises to sign long-term procurement agreements with downstream users, and stabilize the supply of key products such as copper, aluminum, and lithium; Support the research and industrialization of high-end materials such as high specific energy cathode materials, ultra-high purity metals, and high-quality semiconductor materials.

In addition, the plan also proposes to encourage the import of primary products, support smelting enterprises to sign long-term procurement agreements with foreign mining enterprises, and increase the import of raw materials such as copper concentrate, bauxite, nickel concentrate, lithium concentrate, and cobalt intermediate smelting products.

These raw materials are now heavily dependent on imports. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, China imported approximately 2.84 million tons of lithium concentrate in 2022, mainly from countries such as Australia, Brazil, Zimbabwe, and Canada, with a year-on-year increase of about 42%; The import volume of copper ore and concentrate reached a historical peak of 25.3 million tons, accounting for about 93.5% of the national copper concentrate supply; The import of bauxite is 120 million tons, and the external dependence has increased to 65%.