Guidance will be out, steel industry reduction, adjustment, upgrading is imperative

Economic Information Daily has learned that the guideline on promoting high-quality development of the steel industry (hereinafter referred to as the "guideline") has completed the consultation period and will soon be released and implemented.Industry insiders said that the "14th Five-Year" period is the key period for China's iron and steel industry to achieve high-quality development, but from the current point of view, there are still overcapacity pressure, lack of guarantee of industrial safety, ecological environment constraints, low industrial concentration and other issues.The guideline is a guiding document to promote the high-quality development of China's iron and steel industry, and will point out the direction for the steel industry to achieve high-quality development.

"The iron and steel industry as an important basic industry in the 14th Five-Year Plan will not change the basic positioning, but to undertake greater responsibility in green and low-carbon development."Relevant sources revealed that the steel industry will strive to achieve the first carbon peak by 2025. In general, under the dual control of total energy consumption and intensity and the pressure of carbon trading costs, the steel industry is imperative to reduce, adjust and upgrade.

The people said that in the future, the steel industry will gradually establish a production constraint mechanism based on carbon emissions, pollutant emissions, total energy consumption, capacity utilization, etc., and use comprehensive standards to promote the withdrawal of backward production capacity in accordance with regulations, to prevent the resurgence of "ground strip steel" and the resumption of overcapacity has been resolved.At the same time, the layout of the steel industry will be optimized. In principle, no new coastal steel base projects will be laid out, and new steel smelting projects will be encouraged to develop together based on existing production bases.

Among them, will increase the proportion of electric furnace steelmaking.The above-mentioned personage said that by 2025, China's electric furnace steel production accounted for more than 15% of the total crude steel production ratio, and strive to reach 20%;The scrap ratio reached 30%.

"Industrial resource protection for the steel industry will be mentioned in a more important position."The personage said that in recent years, iron ore and other raw materials prices have soared, speed up the establishment of a long-term, stable, diversified iron ore supply security system, to achieve the safety and stability of resource supply is extremely important.At the same time, the iron ore production capacity reserve and mining area reserve system should be established, and the domestic supply chain construction of scrap steel resources should be strengthened, and iron and steel enterprises should be encouraged to build a stable scrap supply network, and make full use of overseas renewable steel raw material resources.

"Make full use of both domestic and international markets and resources to ensure the supply of iron ore raw materials."According to the above persons, by 2025, the domestic self-sufficiency rate of iron metal will reach more than 45%, and the annual output of domestic scrap steel resources will reach 300 million tons. At the same time, we will build one or two overseas iron mines with global influence and market competitiveness, and overseas iron mines with overseas interests will account for more than 20% of the imported ore.

In addition to ensuring the stability of raw materials, improving industrial concentration is the key to the future high quality development of the steel industry.By 2025, China will build several of the world's largest steel groups and first-class specialized enterprises, aiming for 40% industrial concentration for the top five and 60% for the top 10, according to the people.At the same time, relying on the industry advantages of enterprises, in the stainless steel, special steel, seamless steel pipe, cast pipe and other subdivision of the cultivation of 1~2 world-class professional leading enterprises.

"Enhancing industrial concentration will effectively enhance the effective supply capacity and overall competitiveness of China's steel industry."Zhang Longqiang, the party secretary and president of Metallurgical Industry Information Standard Research Institute, said that improving industry concentration through merger and reorganization, improving the ability to control resources and market power, reducing costs and enhancing market competitiveness are the key path to the structural adjustment and optimization of the steel industry.

According to the calculated data, according to the ten steel enterprises cumulative output of crude steel, China's iron and steel industry concentration in 2020 is 39.2%, 2.6 percentage points higher than in 2019, 5.0 percentage points higher than the end of the "13th Five Year Plan", but compared with Japan, South Korea, Russia, the United States and other countries have a large gap.

Specifically, in 2019, the industrial concentration of the top two steel enterprises in Japan was as high as 79.6%, the top three steel enterprises in the United States accounted for 51.8%, the top four steel enterprises in Russia accounted for 75.1%, and the top two steel enterprises in South Korea accounted for 90.6%.It is worth mentioning that in India, the top three steel enterprises accounted for 56.3%.

"Joint restructuring is the only way for China's steel industry to reach the peak in the context of the overall."Zhang Longqiang pointed out that the use of the current favorable merger and reorganization important window period, actively carry out cross-regional, cross-ownership of mergers and reorganization, as well as regional, strategic major mergers and reorganization, to accelerate the promotion of industrial concentration, continue to improve the level of development of the steel industry.

He suggested promoting the merger and reorganization of leading enterprises in the industry and establishing and building a number of world-class super-large steel enterprise groups.Large iron and steel enterprises have strong financial strength, vigorously promote intelligent manufacturing, implement network chemical plant layout and integrated control, and significantly reduce labor costs, which will inevitably further squeeze the market space of regional iron and steel enterprises and small and medium-sized steel enterprises.Therefore, in addition to cross-regional leading strong union, within the same sales radius of the iron and steel enterprises through restructuring "unity heating" has been to improve the viability of the realistic choice.

In addition to increasing restructuring efforts, the steel industry high quality development of another focus is to upgrade the quality.Industry insiders said that steel is the "food" for the development of the manufacturing industry, but also to support the development of the "skeleton" of the manufacturing industry, only the "food" variety is rich, good quality, manufacturing power can go better, walk more stable, the waist is harder.The steel industry should stand at a new historical high point and accelerate the transformation of the whole industry from quantity accumulation to quality improvement.

It is reported that by 2025, China will accelerate the upgrading of steel products, and continue to improve the stability, reliability and durability of the physical quality of products. More than 60% of the physical quality of steel products has reached the international advanced level.At the same time, the research and development intensity is increased, the research and development investment intensity reaches 1.5%, the annual breakthrough of 3~5 key short plate steel materials, steel short plate material proportion is reduced to less than 1‰, to achieve the independent guarantee of key steel materials.

Luo Tiejun, vice chairman of China Iron and Steel Industry Association, also said that over the years, China's iron and steel industry from the introduction, digestion, absorption, innovation, development to independent integration and innovation, the realization of the vast majority of steel varieties self-sufficiency rate of more than 100%, but in aerospace, Marine engineering and other key areas of steel there are still short board.Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the proportion of R&D investment in China's steel industry has increased from 0.83% in 2013 to 1.26% in 2019, but there is still a gap with the average level of 1.45% in the manufacturing industry. Scientific and technological innovation is the core to solve the problem of new materials "sticking neck" in the future.