Recently, three ministries and commissions—the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Natural Resources—jointly issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Raw Materials Industry."

The Plan states: actively implement energy-saving and low-carbon actions, formulate carbon peak implementation plans for key industries such as petrochemicals, steel, nonferrous metals, and building materials, accelerate the energy-saving and low-carbon transformation and upgrading of enterprises, and encourage qualified industries and enterprises to take the lead in reaching peak emissions.

The Plan sets specific targets for 2025: the production capacity of major bulk raw materials such as crude steel and cement will only decrease, not increase. Form 5 to 10 industrial chain leading enterprises with ecological leadership and core competitiveness. Form more than 5 world-class advanced manufacturing clusters in the raw materials field.‍

Overall Approach and Objectives of the Plan

The Plan adheres to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as its guide, fully implements the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the plenary sessions of the 19th Central Committee, bases itself on the new development stage, fully, accurately, and comprehensively implements the new development philosophy, accelerates the construction of a new development pattern, takes promoting high-quality development as the theme, takes deepening supply-side structural reform as the main line, takes reform and innovation as the fundamental driving force, takes meeting the people's ever-growing needs for a better life as the fundamental purpose, coordinates development and security, focuses on enhancing the advanced level of the industrial base and the modernization level of industrial chains, strives to optimize traditional industries and product structures, cultivates and strengthens the new materials industry, accelerates information technology empowerment, fills shortcomings in industrial chains, achieves low-carbon and recyclability, and promotes high-end industrial supply, rationalized structure, green development, digital transformation, and a secure system, so as to provide strong support for pushing the building of a manufacturing powerhouse to a new level and for getting the comprehensive building of a modern socialist country off to a good start.

Following the basic principles of "innovation-led, market-driven, supply-demand coordination, and green and safe," the Plan proposes the overall development direction for the next five years and the vision for the next 15 years. By 2025, the raw materials industry's capacity to guarantee and lead the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry will be significantly enhanced; the growth rate of added value will remain at a reasonable level, and its proportion in the manufacturing industry will remain basically stable; the scale of the new materials industry will continue to increase, and its proportion in the raw materials industry will rise significantly; an industrial development pattern featuring higher quality, better efficiency, better layout, greater greenness, and greater safety will take initial shape. By 2035, China will become a world-important highland for the R&D, production, and application of raw materials products, the competitiveness of the new materials industry will be comprehensively enhanced, the level of green and low-carbon development will be world-advanced, and the industrial system will be safe, autonomous, and controllable.‍

The Plan proposes five specific targets for 2025:

First, the level of high-end supply will continuously improve. Break through a batch of key basic materials in key strategic fields. The R&D investment intensity of key industries will reach more than 1.5%, and a batch of key core technologies in the industry will be mastered.

Second, the level of structural rationalization will continue to improve. The production capacity of major bulk raw materials such as crude steel and cement will only decrease, not increase. Form 5 to 10 industrial chain leading enterprises with ecological leadership and core competitiveness. Form more than 5 world-class advanced manufacturing clusters in the raw materials field.

Third, the level of green development will be substantially improved. Comprehensive energy consumption per ton of steel will decrease by 2%, energy consumption per unit of clinker for cement products will decrease by 3.7%, and carbon emissions from electrolytic aluminum will decrease by 5%. The emission intensity and total amount of pollutants per unit of output value in key industries will both decline. The comprehensive utilization rate of solid waste such as industrial waste residue will be further improved.

Fourth, the effects of industrial digital transformation will become prominent. Enterprises with intelligent manufacturing capability maturity level 3 or above will reach more than 20%, and the numerical control rate of key processes will exceed 70%. Build more than 100 intelligent manufacturing demonstration factories and more than 10 industrial internet platforms.

Fifth, the foundation for a secure system will be more solid. The autonomous and controllable level of key production processes, technologies, and equipment in key industries will be substantially improved, and breakpoints and bottlenecks in industrial chains will be significantly reduced. The task of relocating and transforming hazardous chemicals production enterprises in densely populated urban areas will be fully completed.‍

Key Tasks of the Plan

Centering on the development goals, the Plan proposes five key tasks—high-end, rationalized, green, digital, and safe development—from five aspects: supply level, industrial structure, green and low-carbon, digital transformation, and industrial safety.

First, promote high-end industrial supply. Improve the innovation system, strengthen the support of innovation platforms and carriers, and optimize and improve the innovation mechanism ecosystem. Conquer key technologies, and optimize allocation and resource sharing through deep integration of industry, academia, research, and application. Break through key materials, adhere to both material-first and demand-driven approaches, and implement actions to tackle key shortcoming materials, consolidate and upgrade bulk basic materials, and make forward-looking layouts for frontier materials. Improve product quality, strengthen quality management and process control, advance product standards and brand building, and improve the quality evaluation and certification system.

Second, promote the rationalization of industrial structure. Consolidate the results of capacity reduction by strictly controlling new capacity and improving long-term mechanisms. Guide the rational layout of capacity by optimizing the layout of newly built capacity and promoting standardized and clustered development. Optimize the organizational structure by making leading enterprises bigger and stronger and cultivating and strengthening small and medium-sized enterprises. Promote industrial coordination by expanding domestic demand for medium- and high-end materials and strengthening upstream and downstream linkages.

Third, accelerate green industrial development. Actively implement energy-saving and low-carbon actions, formulate carbon peak implementation plans for key industries such as petrochemicals, steel, nonferrous metals, and building materials, accelerate the energy-saving and low-carbon transformation and upgrading of enterprises, and encourage qualified industries and enterprises to take the lead in reaching peak emissions. Promote ultra-low emissions and cleaner production, study and promote the implementation of ultra-low emissions in key industries, innovate promotion models for cleaner production in key industries, and strengthen the concept of green development throughout the product life cycle. Improve the level of comprehensive resource utilization, continuously improve the management level of key processes and processes, improve the efficiency of primary resource utilization, and reduce resource and energy consumption from the source. Build a batch of industrial resource comprehensive utilization bases, establish raw materials industry coupling development parks in qualified areas, and realize cascade utilization of energy and resources and industrial circular linkage.

Fourth, accelerate the digitalization of industrial transformation. Accelerate intelligent manufacturing processes, advance the construction of digital infrastructure, encourage qualified enterprises to use new-generation information technologies such as 5G to upgrade networks, build ubiquitous perception and interconnected factory operating environments, improve the level of intelligent production, accelerate the transformation of enterprise management systems, and guide enterprises to improve the level of integrated application of information technology step by step or across levels. Promote industrial internet empowerment, encourage "chain leader" enterprises in industrial chains to build enterprise-level industrial internet platforms, build industrial internet platforms, focus on key links to cultivate and promote a batch of process management industrial APPs and solutions, and accelerate the exploration of integrated development of the raw materials industry with "5G + Industrial Internet." Consolidate the digital support foundation, advance the construction of intelligent manufacturing standards systems by industry, build intelligent manufacturing standards test and verification platforms, form a batch of digital and intelligent system solutions, and implement classified and graded management of industrial internet cybersecurity.

Fifth, ensure the security of the industrial system. Improve resource guarantee capacity, rationally develop domestic mineral resources, expand diversified resource supply channels, develop "urban mine" resources, and advance international cooperation in the mineral resources field. Enhance supporting support capacity, expand supporting supply channels, sort out shortcomings in industrial chains and supply chains, strengthen the development and application of shortcoming equipment, and enhance the autonomous and controllable capacity of industrial chains and supply chains. Improve the level of safe production, strengthen the intrinsic safety of enterprises, and promote enterprises to fulfill their main responsibilities.‍

Key Projects Deployed by the Plan

To promote the smooth implementation of the "five transformations" tasks, the Plan deploys five major projects: the new materials innovation and development project, the low-carbon manufacturing pilot project, the digital empowerment project, the strategic resource security guarantee project, and the chain supplementation and strengthening project.

First, implement the new materials innovation and development project. By breaking through key varieties and improving public platforms, enhance the guarantee capacity for key materials.

Second, implement the low-carbon manufacturing pilot project. By implementing technological breakthroughs, promoting a batch of advanced technologies, and building pilot projects, promote substantive progress in low-carbon manufacturing in the raw materials industry.

Third, implement the digital empowerment project. Through pilot demonstrations, building service platforms, and improving standards systems, form a batch of intelligent manufacturing demonstration factories and industrial internet platforms in key industries, and promote the deep integration of the raw materials industry with digitalization.

Fourth, implement the strategic resource security guarantee project. Through prospecting actions and base construction, build a stable and open resource guarantee system, and improve the guarantee capacity for some mineral resources.

Fifth, implement the chain supplementation and strengthening project. Through collaborative breakthroughs, expanding supporting channels, encouraging integrated innovation, establishing information sharing platforms, and forming consortia, enhance the initiative in development and effectively relieve breakpoints and bottlenecks in major industrial chains.‍