Recently, Hexian County's key project advancement work received provincial-level commendation, marking the 15th consecutive year the county has won this honor. Speaking of the matter, Li Shan, director of the Hexian County Development and Reform Commission, believes the key lies in implementing mechanism innovation and applying the "Nine Ones" mechanism—including "one consultation per week, one rating per quarter, and one package of guarantees"—to advance high-quality development across the entire project process. As of the end of June this year, the county's 138 provincial and municipal key engineering projects had completed investment of 10.33 billion yuan, with investment completion rate, start-up rate, and completion rate reaching 69.5%, 95%, and 64.3% respectively.

Rating System Spurs Striving for Excellence
"Red, yellow, and green ratings are applied to the completion of node plans for preliminary work, factor guarantees, construction progress, and fixed asset investment, thereby spurring laggards and encouraging excellence and initiative," Li Shan explained.
Ma'anshan Fangxin Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Fangxin Environmental Protection) was a company that received a yellow rating in the first half of last year. General Manager Meng Zhaohua still recalls the matter vividly. He said that after receiving the yellow warning, he was quite shocked and felt considerable pressure, as it had a significant impact on the company's reputation. He immediately convened a meeting of the company's functional departments, formulated action plans for project construction that had not met planned nodes, drew up a list of ten key items, and assigned each to responsible persons. In October last year, the company's trial production plan passed expert review on October 28, and trial production began on November 5 of the same year.
"What we lacked was not funding, but a sense of urgency," Meng Zhaohua said, pinpointing the root cause of the company's yellow rating. The company then organized human resources and external resources to accelerate progress. Fangxin Environmental Protection looked for causes within itself rather than blaming others, turning pressure into motivation and courageously taking responsibility. During electrical construction, the contractor exposed weak construction organization capabilities, causing a three-month delay in the project schedule. "The contractor was strong in high-voltage work but weak in low-voltage work. To recover losses and accelerate progress, the company organized forces to join the construction. At the same time, the Hexian Economic Development Zone actively invited the county power department to conduct acceptance checks in advance, correcting problems found during acceptance in a timely manner. A project that normally takes half a month for acceptance took us only three days." Meng Zhaohua was very satisfied with the speed of project acceptance.
Last year, Fangxin Environmental Protection implemented a low-temperature SCR denitrification catalyst project covering 80 mu, used to remove nitrogen oxides in waste gas treatment, achieving an output value of 48 million yuan. This year's planned output value is 200 million yuan.
Due to the broader environment, engineering construction volume declined, and engineering-type orders were also affected. However, Fangxin Environmental Protection's own catalyst sales volume rose 10%, mainly for steel sintering, industrial kilns, and industrial silicon. The company increased R&D investment, spending more than 20 million yuan to develop a denitrification catalyst with a minimum operating temperature of 160 degrees Celsius—the lowest temperature in industrial applications. In July this year, two of Fangxin Environmental Protection's research achievements passed appraisal. One was a carbon capture absorbent, appraised by Zhejiang University as reaching first-class international standards; the other, on July 20, was a flue gas denitrification catalyst for alkali recovery boilers, appraised by experts organized by the China Environmental Protection Association, filling a domestic gap and reaching internationally leading technical standards. Meng Zhaohua remarked with a smile: after the carbon capture absorbent is put into production, annual output value could reach 500 million yuan. The pilot production line is currently under construction; the product's anti-degradation capability is 21 times that of traditional products, with very obvious energy-saving effects.
Since the second quarter of last year, Hexian has issued ratings five times, covering 35 projects, including 8 red-rated projects and 27 yellow-rated projects. Among the 35 rated projects, 20 accelerated construction to catch up, 7 had contracts terminated and land reclaimed, and 8 are being accelerated.

Consultation Meetings Resolve Difficulties
Standing on the Chuhe River embankment, the Shiyang River flows surging from south to north into the Chuhe River. On the east side of the embankment, four or five excavators swing their steel arms, leveling the ground under the blazing sun. "This is the construction site of the public wharf project in the Shiyang Operation Area of the Hexian Port District of Ma'anshan Port," introduced Fan Fanghua, head of the Asset Operations Department of Anhui Hezhou Holding Group Co., Ltd. The first phase of the project builds the main wharf structure; the second phase will build corridors and relocate the backup water source intake. The public wharf in the Shiyang Operation Area of the Hexian Port District of Ma'anshan Port will be completed in October 2025, with total investment of 1.2 billion yuan. The first-phase main wharf structure involves investment of about 600 million yuan, a shoreline length of 535 meters, annual throughput of 8.8 million tons, annual passing capacity of 9.24 million tons, equipped with corresponding loading and unloading equipment, and construction of seven 500-ton-class berths (hydraulic structures also accommodating 1,000-ton class), an office building, and other facilities.
The public wharf project in the Shiyang Operation Area of the Hexian Port District of Ma'anshan Port is located in Shiyang Town, Hexian County, on the right bank of the Shiyang River, about 300 meters from the mouth where it enters the Chuhe River. The land area is 191 mu, mainly laid out with general storage yards and production auxiliary facilities, including a materials warehouse, machine repair workshop, fire pump room, fire water tank, and sedimentation tank. A newly built 9-meter-wide road connects with the embankment access roads, and newly built Gangyi Road and Ganger Road connect with Provincial Roads S210 and S328. Supporting construction includes warehouses, power supply and lighting, communications, environmental protection, water supply and drainage, fire protection, and other necessary facilities.
During construction, the project encountered more than ten problems of various sizes, such as shoreline approval, wharf construction land approval, and environmental impact assessment, involving coordination among multiple departments including the County Key Projects Center, the County Natural Resources and Planning Bureau, and the County Transportation Bureau. Wharf land use involves administrative approval, environmental protection, and site selection. The preliminary work of the wharf project includes preliminary design and approval, the site selection opinion from the Natural Resources and Planning Bureau, adjustment of public welfare forest, cultural relic protection, preparation of soil and water conservation plans, relocation of the drinking water backup source intake, land acquisition and demolition in Shiyang Town, and approval for construction of Gangyi Road and Ganger Road.
In September 2022, Hexian held its first consultation meeting on the wharf project, led by the county leader in charge, and established a special wharf construction advancement task force to sort out the difficult and blocking issues encountered in project advancement and assign tasks to departments with deadlines for completion. "The most recent one was held on July 17 this year; the wharf project consultation meeting has been held six times in total," Fan Fanghua introduced. Task force members frequently come to the project site for scheduling, and all carrier units go all out to advance project construction. At present, relocation of power poles and lines and land acquisition and demolition by the Shiyang Town government have been completed; more than 1,000 cement mixing piles on Gangyi Road have been constructed, and gravel is being laid on the road surface; channel dredging has completed 170,000 cubic meters, and four sunken ships have been salvaged; the wharf platform has entered construction. In this land acquisition and demolition, Shiyang Town acquired land from more than 40 households in 8 village groups, from the start of acquisition in August last year to completion at the end of March this year.
China Telecom's cable relocation will be completed in September this year. The Natural Resources and Planning Bureau and Shiyang Town will list the land for transfer, and the project land certificate has been obtained. The county transportation department organized expert review of the Gangyi Road construction drawings, approved them after modification according to opinions, and adjusted issues in the design; the County Transportation Bureau organized another expert review, mainly concerning the prohibition on building wharves within 3 kilometers of the water intake. The "Technical Report on Adjustment of the Chuhe River Backup Water Source Protection Area in Hexian County" and the "Division Plan for Protection of the Chuhe River Backup Water Source in Hexian County" have been submitted to the Provincial Department of Environmental Protection for approval. The leaders in charge of various county departments involved in the wharf actively promote project construction, proactively contact the project construction unit, and are unwilling to lag behind or hold back overall work progress due to their own departments.
Speaking of cadre work style, Fan Fanghua mentioned one matter. "We started the shoreline application in October last year and secured it by December last year, in just over two months—the speed was astonishing." The government's consultation meetings resolved this series of difficulties. Administrative approvals such as shoreline approval, preliminary design approval, and permits for above-water and underwater channel dredging construction were all very fast. "This has a lot to do with leadership scheduling and interdepartmental coordination and communication," Fan Fanghua said. The wharf project obtained 120 million yuan from policy-based and developmental financial instruments. The wharf is being built mainly to solve the problem of transporting mine stone materials; transporting by wharf to the Yangtze River is safer and less polluting, reduces road damage, lowers transport costs, and is both environmentally friendly and safe.
This year is a year of project breakthrough—everything for projects, everything serving projects. With the concept of "projects first," Hexian has established a consultation and coordination mechanism for key projects to coordinate all factor guarantees for projects. Since last year, the county has held 36 consultation meetings, coordinating 295 factor guarantee issues for 117 projects, all completed within deadlines.

Idle Land Put to Effective Use
Anhui Zhongyuan Laser Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhongyuan Company), established in 2006, mainly engages in steel processing, laser cutting, and other businesses. In the 2020 per-mu efficiency evaluation, the company was rated a Class D enterprise and had to be cleared out of the park. To "vacate the cage and replace the bird," the Hexian Economic Development Zone urgently needed to find a suitable project to fill the space. In November last year, through investment promotion, the Hexian Economic Development Zone brought in Greensda, a listed company from Beijing. Its introduction marked the formal clearance of Zhongyuan Company. After clearance, Zhongyuan Company left behind one office building and two factory buildings, one of which was only a steel structure and had never been completed. Hexian Economic Development Zone Hesheng Construction Development Co., Ltd. first purchased and reserved Zhongyuan Company's assets, then completed the unfinished project and transferred it to Greensda in May this year. Greensda has now moved in for construction, with investment of 100 million yuan; after production, it can achieve an output value of 300 million yuan and tax revenue of 8 million yuan, with trial production expected by the end of this year.
The Dingbang Intelligent Garment Manufacturing Industrial Park project planned to build 130,000 square meters of standardized factory buildings in the main area of the Hexian Economic Development Zone, producing 80 million fashionable T-shirts annually. Due to poor market returns and because the project involved printing and dyeing processes that did not meet the park's environmental impact assessment requirements, it received one yellow rating and two red ratings before construction even began—one might say it was "stillborn." In June and July this year, it was cleared out of the park, and its standardized factory buildings were used by Hexian Jingyou Photovoltaic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jingyou Company). Jingyou Company's project has total investment of 3 billion yuan; the first phase covers 150 mu and is currently handling preliminary procedures such as planning and design, environmental impact assessment, and safety assessment. Construction is expected to start in September this year; the first phase will produce 3 GW of photovoltaic modules, with investment of 2 billion yuan and expected output value of 3 billion yuan.
Huanyan Robot entered the Hexian Economic Development Zone in 2016, covering 50 mu. Of its two factory buildings, one was an unfinished project. The enterprise ceased production in 2017 due to poor product sales, funding shortages, and heavy debts. In June this year, it was won by Hexian Economic Development Zone Hesheng Construction Development Co., Ltd. through judicial auction, and the idle land was used for investment promotion. On July 24, the Hexian Economic Development Zone brought in the overall relocation of the prefabricated building materials project of Anhui Ximudun Building Materials Technology Co., Ltd., with investment of 200 million yuan, output value of about 300 million yuan, and tax revenue of more than 5 million yuan. The project officially entered the site for renovation on July 30.
The per-mu efficiency evaluation enables "vacating the cage and replacing the bird" for inefficient enterprises. In 2022, the Hexian Economic Development Zone completed the rectification and revitalization of 10 zombie (inefficient) enterprises, with a total area of 1,612 mu, and successfully brought in projects such as Beijing Greensda; it is currently revitalizing, clearing, and disposing of land of 782 mu involving 9 zombie enterprises and 2 inefficient enterprises, and has already revitalized 126 mu of idle land such as that of Huanyan Robot.
"The application of the 'Nine Ones' mechanism—including unified management through one database, one observation visit per week, one-vote recognition, one award to encourage competition, one-package follow-through to the end, and one annual overall evaluation—has driven high-quality development of key project construction in Hexian County," Li Shan remarked with a smile.