"A few days ago, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong stated at the first 'ministerial channel' of the 14th National People's Congress that some industries in the industrial industry are relatively large, accounting for more than 1% of GDP, such as electronics, automobiles, steel, nonferrous metals, petrochemical, and other industries. These industries are very important for stable growth, and we need to do everything possible to stabilize these industries. This has brought strong confidence for the steel industry to develop and stabilize growth this year 。” On March 15, at the Third Member Conference of the All-China Metallurgical Chamber of Commerce and the High Quality Development Forum for Private Iron and Steel, Fan Tiejun, President of the Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, delivered a keynote speech on "A New Journey for Low Carbon Steel and a Beautiful New Era for China".

·Correctly Understanding Chinese Steel from the Perspective of "Five, Four, and Three".

"The manufacturing industry is the foundation of a country and the foundation of a powerful country. China's steel industry supports the development of a strong manufacturing industry, providing basic structural materials and important functional materials for improving the quality of life of the people." Fan Tiejun proposed that "Five, Four, and Three" can be used to summarize the development status of China's steel industry.

The "Five" refers to the "Five Aspects" of the steel industry, which is one of the most globally competitive industries in China, specifically manifested as the "Ten Most": possessing the largest and most active domestic demand market, the most complete and complete industrial system, the most and richest talent resources, the latest and most advanced technical equipment, and the fastest and most timely customer service

"Four" means "four leading". "China's steel industry has achieved scale leadership, steadily ranking as the world's largest steel producer for 27 consecutive years; achieved equipment leadership, with world leading large-scale process equipment and new processes and technologies; achieved green leadership, and China's steel industry is undergoing the world's largest ultra-low emission transformation; achieved technology leadership, providing a rich application scenario for intelligent manufacturing." Fan Tiejun explained.

"Three" refers to "three phase superposition". China's steel industry is in a "three phase superposition" state of reducing production, accelerating restructuring, and strengthening environmental protection, and is evolving towards a high-quality and low-carbon stage. "Low carbon development is an important content, key embodiment, and ultimate goal of solving environmental, energy, and resource constraints and promoting high-quality development of the steel industry." Fan Tiejun emphasized.

·Deeply promoting supply-side structural reform focuses on five aspects·

Fan Tiejun stated that as we enter a new stage of development and face new development situations, China's steel industry will continue to deeply promote supply-side structural reform, focusing on five aspects:

The first is based on "dual control" of production capacity and output. Fan Tiejun introduced that since the "13th Five Year Plan", China's steel industry has eliminated excess production capacity of over 150 million tons, withdrawn from "ground strip steel" of 140 million tons, and implemented production control since 2021. In 2022, the "dual control" policy for production capacity and output in the steel industry continued to exert efforts, highlighting key points, distinguishing situations, and maintaining pressure, reducing the production of crude steel in key areas for air pollution prevention and control, as well as in areas with poor environmental performance, high energy consumption, and relatively backward technological equipment levels, promoting the transformation of development philosophy, development mode, and improvement of development quality.

The second is to focus on ultra-low emission transformation. As of March 5, a total of 47 iron and steel enterprises nationwide have completed ultra-low emission transformation and evaluation monitoring for their crude steel production capacity of about 250 million tons, and 217 iron and steel enterprises are implementing ultra-low emission transformation for their crude steel production capacity of about 490 million tons. In particular, Fan Tiejun proposed that in the process of promoting the ultra-low emission transformation of the steel industry, it is necessary to abandon the "ultra low" emission standards that have been imposed layer upon layer, and strive to achieve "dual ultra low" emissions of both conventional pollutants and carbon dioxide. With high-quality ultra-low emissions as the starting point, we should comprehensively promote the green, low-carbon, and high-quality development of the industry, achieving a "win-win" of high-level ecological environment protection and addressing climate change.

The third is driven by "dual control" of energy consumption. Fan Tiejun stated that under the "dual carbon" goal, the steel industry should put energy and resource conservation first, strengthen the "dual control" of energy consumption intensity and total amount, and drive transformation and transformation from "energy conservation" to "energy use". He proposed that the energy transformation process of China's steel industry can be roughly divided into four stages, namely, the primary energy "use" stage (saving priority), the secondary energy utilization stage (improving efficiency), the new and old energy mixing stage (coordination and complementarity), and the future energy universal stage (Unicom sharing).

Fourth, take intelligent manufacturing as the measure. "China's steel industry should use digital technology to empower industry chain supply chain collaboration." Fan Tiejun proposed that at the enterprise level, key enterprises should play a leading role in promoting the application of 5G, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and other technologies in the steel industry; Break through a batch of key core technologies, create a batch of intelligent manufacturing pilot demonstrations, form a batch of professional solutions, and cultivate a batch of system solution service providers. At the industry level, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of an industrial Internet platform, improve the industry intelligent manufacturing standard system, and increase the cultivation of versatile talents.
Fifth, it is oriented towards low-carbon transformation. Fan Tiejun proposed that in the four stages of carbon peaking and carbon neutralization in China's steel industry, peaking is a development issue, with the core being to address structural adjustment issues in development; Carbon reduction is a technical application issue, and the use of existing technologies to reduce energy and resource consumption; Decarbonization is a technological revolution issue, and the research, development, demonstration, and application of breakthrough, cutting-edge, and innovative low-carbon technologies should be promoted; Neutralization is a new change in the development mode, which requires coordinated promotion in multiple fields, and innovation in the original production mode in aspects such as smelting technology, production raw materials, and supporting facilities.

·"Steel demand" presents three major trends in the future·

Regarding the demand for steel in downstream industries, Fan Tiejun predicted that there would be three major trends in the future: a decline in real estate demand, a significant increase in new demand, and an upgrade in traditional demand.

"This year's Government Work Report proposes that the GDP growth in 2023 will be around 5%, releasing a positive signal that the overall domestic economic environment is improving, which is conducive to promoting steel consumption to remain high." Fan Tiejun predicts that due to the decline in demand in the construction industry, China's steel demand in 2023 will be about 910 million tons, with a slight year-on-year decrease.
Based on the new changes in the demand side and the new trends in domestic steel consumption, Fan Tiejun proposed three suggestions for the adjustment of the product structure of steel enterprises.

First, clarify the product development strategy. Iron and steel enterprises should accurately identify changes, respond scientifically, actively seek changes, promptly study and formulate product development strategies that meet future needs, and select appropriate product development paths based on their own relevant situations.

Second, focus on regional market demand. Iron and steel enterprises should focus on and accurately identify regional market needs, closely align with customer needs; Actively promote the adjustment of product structure, process equipment, marketing model, research and development system, and human resources; Realize the synergy of the "four chains" of industry chain, service chain, innovation chain, and trade chain, continuously improve regional market share, and consolidate and continuously enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises.

Third, guard against overcapacity in some varieties. "There is a certain overheating phenomenon in the newly built production lines of some steel varieties. The production capacity of varieties such as deformed steel, wire rod, hot rolled wide band steel, cold rolled sheet, galvanized sheet, etc. are all greater than market demand to varying degrees, and the production capacity of some varieties under construction is also considerable." Fan Tiejun pointed out that it is recommended that steel enterprises should base their product positioning on the regional market, give full play to competitive advantages, comprehensively consider technical strength, research and development level Factors such as talent base and competitors, scientific planning, and prudent decision-making.
·The steel industry will present four "three parts of the world"·

"Currently, the development of China's steel industry is entering a downward cycle, facing a market situation where demand is recovering slowly and supply is rebounding rapidly." Fan Tiejun believes that "in order to effectively address new challenges, we should start from the supply side, coordinate supply and demand, and take multiple measures to explore a high-quality development path for a steel and iron power with Chinese characteristics." To this end, he proposed three countermeasures:

One is short-term rhythm control. Fan Tiejun proposed that industry self-discipline should be strengthened and production rhythm should be actively controlled; Strengthen differentiated policies and make good use of regulatory policies such as crude steel production regulation, environmental protection and production restriction, and differentiated electricity prices; Strengthen the transformation of ultra-low emissions, and increase the proportion of enterprises that fail to meet the production limit; Strengthen the "dual control" constraints on energy consumption, strengthen energy conservation supervision, and strictly investigate enterprises that fail to meet energy consumption standards.

The second is to adjust the structure in the medium term. "We should promote the diversified development of industrial structure, the rational development of layout structure, the coordinated development of product structure, and the coordinated development of energy structure," Fan Tiejun said.

Third, long-term changes in the pattern. "The era has created leading enterprises, industry has created specialized enterprises, and cycle has created homogeneous enterprises." Fan Tiejun believes that the new development pattern of China's steel industry will present four "three parts of the world": from the perspective of enterprise structure, it will form a "three parts of the world" where leading enterprises build an ecosystem, professional enterprises stabilize the industrial chain, and homogeneous enterprises form their own line; From the perspective of process pattern, it will form a "three part world" of long process, short process, and low-carbon process; From the perspective of energy structure, a "three pronged world" of primary energy, secondary energy, and new energy will be formed; From the perspective of raw material pattern, it will form a "three part world" of domestic resources, foreign resources, and recycled steel raw materials.