Establishing high-end industrial chains plus strengthening core competitiveness are crucial for achieving high-quality development of China's fine chemical industry, and fine chemical manufacturers are encouraged to embrace breakthrough initiatives to better navigate the transition, said industry insiders.
Considering that China’s chemical industry faces structural shortages in high-end products, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other eight departments recently jointly issued an implementation plan for the innovative development of the fine chemical industry (2024-2027) to guide the high-end, green and intelligent development of the sector.
The plan clearly proposes to cultivate more than 500 "little giant" enterprises that apply special, sophisticated techniques to produce unique and novel products by 2027.
It also gives priority to the high-end advancement of the industrial chain and fostering essential competitive advantages.
"We should provide our raw material products for such strategic emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, and industrial machinery. For instance, carbon fiber can be a suitable product for applications in large aircrafts and new energy materials," explained Zheng Baoshan, deputy director of the China National Petroleum and Chemical Planning Institute.
Meanwhile, the plan aims to promote the collaboration and integration among fine chemical companies, specialized equipment manufacturers and software developers. It encourages them to jointly develop crucial equipment, components, and process control software in order to create diversified support systems for production.
"The actual purpose of achieving breakthroughs in key technologies and overcoming challenges in the development of critical products is to effectively strengthen and enhance the supply chain. We will establish an innovative development system that fosters seamless collaboration among large, medium, and small enterprises while promoting coordination between upstream and downstream industries, to drive the high-end, green and intelligent development of the fine chemical industry," said Li Bin, vice president of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation.
High-end development highlighted for China's fine chemical industry
Authorities in southern China have stepped up rescue efforts after Super Typhoon Yagi roared ashore bringing strong winds, rains and flooding.
The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters raised its emergency flood and typhoon response from Level IV to Level III in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Friday after Yagi made landfall in the neighboring island province of Hainan.
With the typhoon weakening in Guangxi, the local railway operator has carried out inspections and repairs on railroads, and resumed train operations from 15:00 on Saturday on local high-speed railway lines.
In response to the challenges facing Guangxi, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters sent a working group to the province to assist in relief work on Friday.
The working group supported local authorities in Nanning, capital city of Guangxi in allocating 12,500 sets of relief material including tents and emergency lighting to typhoon-hit regions, and organized 2,100 firefighters to prepare for emergency rescue. It also organized the provincial natural resources, housing and construction departments to strengthen inspections of key areas such as dams, reservoirs and locations prone to geological hazards. At the same time, it put 20 professional rescue teams in place in case of emergency.
According to the working group's leader Zhao Zhigang, by 11:00 on Saturday, six cities and 15 counties had been severely impacted by the typhoon, with 60,223 residents affected. He said the local power grid operator had reported that 267,845 users had lost power due to the typhoon, while power supply had been restored to 160,707 users, adding that the power supply department is making every effort to speed up repair work.
Elsewhere, Yagi made a second landfall in Xuwen County, in the city of Zhanjiang in south China's Guangdong Province on Friday evening.
In neighboring Leizhou City rescue workers have been busy clearing fallen trees from roads and fixing damaged fiber-optic cables and base stations.
About 18,000 hectares of farmland in Leizhou, which is a major food producing area in Guangdong, has been affected by the typhoon, with 16,000 hectares of crops, including more than 1,133 hectares of bananas, lost to the storm.
Relief efforts underway as Typhoon Yagi hits southern China
