Chen Zugang, a technician from a Guiyang-based aeronautical fastener manufacturer, never expected that the rivets he processed could replace imports being used on domestically developed aircraft.
But last December, Guizhou Hangrui Science and Technology, where Chen works delivered the first batch of 1,600 titanium blind rivets to an aviation industry customer.
"I was very excited and cheered with all my colleagues at the workshop when we were told the rivets had at last met the customer's requirements," Chen said.
Before that, Chen alone processed a total of nearly 80,000 rivets, but none of them was up to the aviation industry's strict standards.
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Clockwise from top: Workers operate an automatic production line at Geely Auto's plant in Guiyang. Shi Zhaochang / For China Daily; solar shingles are produced in a new-energy company in Guiyang. Provided to China Daily; tires produced by Guizhou Tire Co can be widely used on special vehicles. Provided to China Daily; a worker at Hangrui Science and Technology carefully examines the components to be used in production. Li Hanyi / For China Daily |
"After tens of thousands of experiments, our efforts and hard work over the past four years finally paid off," he added.
Their persistence helped China significantly reduce its dependence on imported fasteners for military planes.
Cheng Fei, general manager of Hangrui Science and Technology, said the company plans to produce 3 million titanium blind rivets by the end of this year, and its production capacity is expected to reach 6 million units per year by 2021, generating an annual output value of about 450 million yuan ($67.20 million).
The company's triumph can be attributed in part to the efforts of the local government of Guiyang, capital city of Southwest China's Guizhou province, to promote medium and high-end manufacturing.
Liyuan Hydraulic, a subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corporation of China focusing on the research and production of hydraulic pumps and motors, is another company in Guiyang that has benefited from the government's efforts.
Due to the adoption of intelligent manufacturing, the company currently carries out most of the production processes by simply monitoring the central control system rather than utilizing manpower, which has boosted productivity and improved the quality of its products.
"We achieved an annual sales revenue of 700 million yuan in 2018, and it is my hope that the number could reach 1 billion yuan one day in the future," said Zhang Zheng, general manager of the Liyuan Hydraulic.
Guiyang, due to its ecological and technological advantages, has developed strong competitiveness in fields of big data, civil-military integration, equipment manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, food, chemicals and aluminum processing, laying a solid foundation for high-quality economic development.
In 2018, the city signed agreements for attracting 1,203 new projects, with an actual investment of 260 billion yuan. The number of projects increased 12.01 percent and investment amount grew 6.8 percent over the previous year.
During the same period, a total of 1,268 new projects broke ground in Guiyang. In addition, 1,085 projects became operational, an increase of 37.34 percent from 2017.
Late last year, the Guiyang government announced in a report that it would be gearing up to implement a higher level of opening-up, further supporting and strengthening its real economy, and speeding up efforts to achieve high-quality development by seizing a number of key strategic opportunities.
The opportunities mentioned by name included the Belt and Road Initiative; the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, which is a memorandum of understanding signed between China and Singapore in 2018 under the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstrative Initiative on Strategic Connectivity; and Guizhou's construction of an inland open economic pilot zone.
Government departments at all levels in Guiyang will also deepen reform, expand opening-up and create a better environment for international businesses, said Chen Yan, party chief and mayor of Guiyang.
Chen is attending the ongoing National People's Congress session in Beijing as a deputy.
haonan@chinadaily.com.cn
