Strategic emergence of new industries

The proportion of secondary industry in Ma'anshan has reached 68.1 percent, with heavy industry standing as the titanic pillar, accounting for 91 percent of the city's total industry. One of its best-known companies is Magang (Group) Holding Co Ltd, or Ma Steel, founded in 1958, which is a super-sized iron and steel complex in China with some 47,000 employees.

Currently, Ma'anshan is bolstering the development of its strategic emerging industries, whose output reached 42 billion yuan ($6.36 billion) last year, a rise of 2.3 percent over 2014. The city's output of high-tech industry climbed to 78 billion yuan in 2014, with the number of hightech enterprises reaching 213.

At present, Ma'anshan is administering one State-level economic and technological development zone, one State-level new material base, one national high-tech industrial development zone, a provincial-level high-tech industrial development zone, and six provincial-level economic and technological development zones. There are also one provincial-level service outsourcing industry demonstration zone, one provincial-level Taiwanese industrial park and a number of themed industrial parks in the city.

Great efforts are being made to promote the upgrading of its traditional industries, including iron and steel, equipment and automobile manufacturing, light chemical industry and food production, as well as building materials.

For iron and steel, Ma'anshan is trying to develop high value-added and deep-processed products for rails, automotives, construction, marine engineering, high-speed tools and high-performance power use. The city's industry specializes in production of high-quality wrought steel, iron-based composite materials and steel products. The city now has capacity to make 15 million metric tons of pig iron, 50,000 tons of cast iron and 20 million tons of steel.

For equipment and automobile manufacturing, the city aims to promote the development of rail transport equipment, engineering equipment, intelligent equipment (industrial and specialized robots), computer numerical control) machine tools, heavy-duty vehicles, special-purpose vehicles, new energy vehicles, engines, transmissions, automobile electronic control systems and automobile axles.

For light chemical industry and food, Ma'anshan seeks to better explore industries for food processing, paper making, household and fine chemicals, and expand into those fields' upstreams and downstreams. Famous brands, such as Meng Niu, Yurun, Tsingtao Beer, Daly food, and Huangchi all have plants here.

For building materials, the city focuses on the development of better housing materials and decorative, green-building materials.

At the sametime, Ma'anshan is prioritizing the advancement of its strategic emerging industries and high-tech industry.

The city aims to set up four cluster bases for strategic emerging industries, including rail transport equipment, high-end CNC machine tools, fine chemicals and green food. It also intends to nurture four cluster bases for strategic emerging industries, covering biomedicine, electronic information, high-end equipment manufacturing, energy preservation and environmental protection.

(China Daily 09/06/2016 page19)