Old industries look to modern methods

Quality control workers inspect bottles at a vinegar production plant in Taiyuan's Qingxu county. [Photo by Li Zhaomin for China Daily]

Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi province, has been a traditional manufacturing base in China for many years, featuring competitive sectors such as steelmaking, machinery, food and semiconductors.

The government of the city recently released a new plan, aiming to give manufacturing another boost through refreshed positioning and new measures.

One highlight is to promote intelligent manufacturing, especially for such heavyweights as Taiyuan Heavy Machinery Group and Taiyuan Boiler Works.

Another focus of the plan is to develop specialized, refined, differential and innovative industries, and to build characteristic towns in specialized industries.

Qingxu, a county in Taiyuan, was on the list of Shanxi's first batch of provincial-level characteristic towns for its mature vinegar industry. Taiyuan's authorities predict the industry will realize an annual output of 1 million metric tons this year.

Other characteristic towns at city level to be developed in Taiyuan include one for electric motors in Xiaodian district, which aims to grow into the nation's largest low-voltage and energy conserving motor production base; a carbon-fiber town in Yangqu county; and a stainless-steel town in Zhongbei High-Tech Development Zone.

Another highlight of the plan is to extend and strengthen industry chains.

This part of the plan requires local leading manufacturers – including Taiyuan Iron and Steel, Huike Electronic New Materials, Meijin Hydrogen, Taiyuan Heavy Machinery and Shanxi Electric Motors – to build stronger industry chains through sharing of resources.

In an era of digitalization, the plan places focus on the digital economy for empowering the high-quality development of local manufacturers.

The city government of Taiyuan recently announced an action plan for the digital economy, defining its goals for this year and measures for implementation.

The action plan predicts there will be a rapid growth in the development of digital-related new infrastructure and the number of 5G base stations will reach 14,000 by the end of this year.

More than 10 major projects relating to big data, cloud computing and digital industrialization will also be launched this year.

Yang Yu contributed to this story.