China to Strengthen Industrial Management of Raw Materials     

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued Guidelines on Further Strengthening Industrial Management of Raw Materials on July 2nd. MIIT points out in the guidelines that China has built up integral raw material industrial system after several decades of effort, with massive scale of industry, most of the products being world class, but prominent problems remain such as overcapacity, dispersed productive forces, and a low degree of concentration. Also, product and industrial structure are unreasonable, and a great amount of outdated equipment is in use, resource and energy consumption are huge, and the environment is severely polluted, industrial management system is rudimentary, the administrative functions are disbursed, the administrative measures are weakened, and some lines of business are in disorder. So the MIIT decided to strengthen management of the seven raw materials industries - petrochemicals, chemicals, iron/steel, non-ferrous metals, building materials, gold, and rare earth metals.
    MIIT requires, in the guidelines, that local governments stick to controlling the total amount of productivity, to shift the mode of development, to promote the development of the raw material industry from dependence of blind expansion to optimization structure, to improve quality and add the transformation of value-added, and to increase the utilization ratio of resources, technology improvement and management innovation.
    It is required that all local governments work hard on industrial development strategies and program studies to formulate special plans for important products such as ethylene, fertilizer, agrochemicals, chlor-alkali, steel and iron, aluminum, rare metals, cement, flat glass, etc. The development and administration of metallic minerals and non-metallic minerals resources shall be strengthened. The local government shall regulate mineral resources exploration, preserve the ecological environment, protect and explore rationally mineral resources, control strictly the exploration of rare metal, make development programs for the agrochemical such as fertilizer, pesticides, and encourage development of excellent and effective farm-use products and discard low efficient and high-toxic pesticides. Local governments shall severely crackdown on fake products which are harmful for peasants, and ensure a stable supply of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, diesel, etc.
    Local governments will vigorously promote the reform and restructure of trans-regional and trans-possession system enterprises related to steel and iron, non-ferrous materials, cement, plane glass, rare earth, gold, chemical fertilizer, agricultural chemical, promote integrated development of upstream and downstream industries, upgrade the degree of industrial concentration, develop scale economy, and support the non state-owned economy's development. At the same time, they will reinforce fixed assets management and control blind expansion of industrial output to raw materials. MIIT requires local government to support large projects and control small projects, adjust project arrangement properly, and promote construction of industrial parks and clusters.
   Local governments shall perform international obligations, undertake and coordinate the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention on behalf of the state, strengthen the supervision and administration of the MCCs in relation to facility construction, production, utilization and storage according to law, and promote the industrial structure optimization and upgrading.