The following article is from China Metallurgical News, the author is China Metallurgical News

China Metallurgical News.

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"This year is a critical year for achieving the goals and tasks of the '14th Five-Year Plan'. It is also a critical period for the transformation, upgrading and high-quality development of the steel industry. We must strengthen our confidence, work hard, and promote high-quality development of the steel industry." On March 30, at the 2024 (15th) Steel High-Quality Development Conference hosted by the Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, Xia Nong, Vice President of the China Iron and Steel Association, discussed his understanding and understanding of the development trend of the steel industry from the perspective of deepening supply-side structural reforms and expanding domestic demand.

He said that since 2023, Chinese steel companies have faced many difficulties and challenges, continuously adapted to the market, proactively matched demand, adjusted variety structure, strengthened benchmarking and tapping potential, and maintained a stable overall production and operation. At the same time, steel companies have increased investment in energy conservation and environmental protection, the process of ultra-low emission transformation has accelerated, the industry's environmental protection level has continued to improve, the endogenous driving force for green transformation has continued to increase, and high-quality development has taken solid steps. Specifically, from the perspective of production, China's steel output remains high and the variety structure continues to be optimized; from the perspective of steel consumption, China's apparent steel consumption has declined; from the perspective of production raw materials, the development of iron resources still needs to be strengthened; from the perspective of global steel, steel production remains stable.

Xia Nong believes that if the steel industry wants to achieve high-quality development, it can be vigorously promoted from the following two aspects.

The picture shows Xia Nong

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Coordinate supply-side structural reforms

with the expansion of domestic demand

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Xia Nong introduced that since the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", the steel industry has resolved excess steel production capacity and completely banned "underground steel"; vigorously promoted mergers, reorganization and integration, promoted technological innovation and process equipment updates, and implemented ultra-low emission transformation, extreme energy efficiency, and digitalization. The "three major projects" such as transformation have significantly improved the development level of the industry, with obvious high-end, green and intelligent development characteristics. New results have been continuously achieved, demonstrating huge development resilience and potential.

From a supply-side perspective, the Steel Association will continue to promote mergers and reorganizations in the steel industry, continue to promote the "three major projects" of ultra-low emission transformation, extreme energy efficiency, and digital transformation, and continue to promote the development of iron ore resources. While cooperating with relevant departments to do a good job in production capacity replacement and supervision and implementation of production capacity management, we will further listen to the opinions and suggestions of enterprises, strengthen research in aspects such as sorting out smelting equipment, especially to strengthen "establishing a new mechanism for production capacity management", gradually introduce energy consumption constraints and research on carbon emission constraints, and promptly submit the research results to relevant departments for decision-making reference.

From the demand side, at present and in the future, China's steel industry will enter a period of deep adjustment."High quality and quantity reduction", which is characterized by "low-carbon, green and high-quality products" and "reduction in output", will become the characteristics of this development stage. Although China's total steel consumption has reached its peak platform, with the continuous advancement of technology in China's steel industry and the acceleration of structural adjustment in China's manufacturing industry, new products, new technologies, new models, and even emerging fields and emerging industries continue to emerge. There is still a lot of market space for the further expansion of domestic demand. To this end, the Steel Association proposed the "Steel Application Expansion Plan" and established a Steel Application Promotion Center to be responsible for the application promotion of steel downstream markets.

According to Xia Nong, since December last year, He Wenbo, Secretary of the Party Committee and Executive President of the China Iron and Steel Association, has personally led a team to organize surveys and went to key member companies and downstream industries to carry out the 2023 cross-industry roving office and high-quality development cadre training, and conducted in-depth exchanges with industry associations or leading enterprises in the power, petrochemical, construction, automobile, transportation and other industries on issues such as strengthening the integrated development of steel and downstream industries. Positive results have been achieved in discussing new models and new methods for upstream and downstream industrial cooperation.

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Adhere to high-level opening up,

Continue to promote the internationalization process of the steel industry

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At the second meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensive Deepening Reforms chaired by General Secretary Xi Jinping in July 2023, it is necessary to closely link the construction of a new higher-level open economic system with the high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road", and actively participate in global governance system reform and construction. With the continuous deepening of China's "Belt and Road" initiative, China's steel industry has made new progress in overseas investment since the "14th Five-Year Plan". International cooperation based on mutual cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win results has a good foundation for further accelerating development. The new development pattern of double circulation and mutual promotion continues to achieve new results.
Xia Nong said that summarizing the international development experience of China's steel industry, it is found that successful companies basically follow the following principles:The first is to adapt to the local economic development stage and market demand, and strive to become a core supplier of high-quality overseas downstream enterprises; the second is that international development must not only focus on local resources and markets, but also combine local technology, resources, energy and other factors, as well as the company's own advantages, create new process technologies, cultivate local industrial technical talents, and make unique contributions to the progress of world steel technology; The third is to strictly abide by local laws and regulations, respect local cultural customs, and contribute to local economic growth and social development for mutual benefit and win-win results.
Xia Nong believes that after continuous development, the international development of China's steel industry has a good foundation and many favorable conditions.
First, China's steel industry has established the most complete modern steel industry system in the world. It has complete steel design, construction, production, operation, and supporting capabilities. It has the ability to realize Chinese steel brands going to sea, green going to sea, technology going to sea, and service going to sea. It can also meet the development needs of many countries and regions at different stages and promote the common progress of the steel industry in all countries around the world.
Second, the international development of China's steel industry has always adhered to the enterprise's main body and market orientation, and abided by commercial principles and international practices.
Third, as a responsible steel country in the world, China not only adheres to international development, but also welcomes foreign companies to invest in China to establish steel joint ventures. At the same time, priority has always been given to recommending reliable green and low-carbon process technologies that have been mastered in overseas investment projects, and attention has been paid to cooperating with the host country to explore and develop new processes and new technologies.
Xia Nong also said that the international development of the steel industry is a long-term task. The Steel Association regards "continuously promoting the internationalization process of China's steel" as an important task for the development of the industry and makes unremitting efforts in this regard.

Metallurgical Media

author| Yang Kai

edit| Li Xinrui

audit| Zhang Yao

planning| Chen Xiaoli