Metallurgical industry

The metallurgical industry in Guangxi has witnessed a steady growth over the past years, and the region has formed a relatively complete industrial chain including iron and steel, stainless steel, iron alloy, and manganese. In the first ten months of 2017, the region achieved 232.9 billion yuan ($34.65) in its metallurgical industry, a year-on-year increase of 3.4 percent, and posted a profit of 11.2 billion yuan, up 25 percent year-on-year.

Boasting many competitive enterprises like Guangxi Liuzhou Iron and Steel Group, Guangxi Shenglong Metallurgy Co Ltd, and Guangxi Guigang Iron and Steel Group, the region has grown into an important part of the country’s metallurgical layout. In 2016, the total output of the region’s crude steel recorded 21.1 million metric tons, ranking 10th in the country, and the ferroalloy output totaled 5.21 million tons, the second in the country. The gross output of the metallurgical industry climbed to 288 billion yuan, ranking second among the hundred-billion-yuan industries that are strongly developed in Guangxi.

Despite the solid institutional foundation, the metallurgical industry is facing unbalanced and inadequate development, making it unable to provide effective and efficient support to the development of the region’s high-end equipment manufacturing industries and strategic emerging industries. To chart a new course for its metallurgical industry, the region released an eight-year implementation plan (2017-2025) in November 2017.

According to the plan, the region will formulate a general layout of “one core base, three industrial belts, and nine iron and steel bases”. The “one core base” implies that Guangxi will posit Fangchenggang as the core of its metallurgical industry layout. The “three industrial belts” stands for the Fangchenggang-Guigang-Laibin-Liuzhou Iron and Steel Industrial Belt, the Fangchenggang-Beihai-Yulin-Wuzhou Stainless Steel Industrial Belt, and the Fangchenggang-Chongzuo-Baise Manganese Industrial Belt. The “nine iron and steel bases” refers to Guangxi’s plans to establish nine iron and steel bases in Fangchenggang, Liuzhou, Guigang, Beihai, Yulin, Wuzhou, Baise, Chongzuo, and Hezhou.

The plan states that Guangxi will advance an innovation-driven development strategy to dissolve excess capacity, adjust the structure of products, extend the industrial chain, and advocate green and sustainable development to promote industrial upgrading and improve competitiveness. At the same time, Guangxi will arrange its metallurgical industry in coastal areas to reduce logistics cost. In the future, the proportion of steel production capacity in coastal and port-vicinity areas is expected to exceed 60 percent of the region’s total.

On July 4, 2018, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region unveiled the “Action Plan for High-quality Industrial Development (2018-20)”. According to the action plan, the region will give priority to the research and development of high value-added new materials including construction steel, automotive steel, marine steel, ferronickel, ferrochrome, and new stainless steel materials.

In addition, it will promote the construction of the Guangxi Special Steel Research and Development Center and national metallurgical innovation platform, while further improving smelting and deep processing technology to achieve breakthroughs in key technologies of the metallurgical industry. To promote the production capacity cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative, Guangxi encourages more qualified metallurgic enterprises to cooperate with the countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, and has placed emphasis on the construction of the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park, a joint steel and iron project of 3.5 million tons, which opened in 2013 in Kuantan, Malaysia. It is expected that the total output value of the metallurgical industry will exceed 600 billion yuan by 2025.