Workers are busy at a factory of Shanxi High-Tech Huaye Electronic Group in Changzhi, Shanxi province. [Provided To China Daily] Companies threatened by price slump thrive after charging into new, emerging markets For many people, the name Changzhi is synonymous with coal. The city in northern China's Shanxi province has 90.6 billion metric tons of coal reserves, and the black stuff can be found under 61 percent of its land area. Every year, it produces 100 million tons of coal. Yet as the nation celebrates the 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up, people are seeing Changzhi in a new light. The city's efforts to become a home for enterprises that offer high added value and cutting-edge technology appear to be yielding encouraging results. Shanxi Lubao Coking Group was established in 1994 in Dianshang township and is today Shanxi's largest private enterprise, employing about 20,000 people. While many companies were going bankrupt due to a slump in the coke market between 2008 and 2015 - more than 30 went bust in Dianshang alone - Lubao shifted focus and began manufacturing coke-related chemicals, the prices of which were rising. It not only survived but thrived, making the company more determined to expand its industry chain and produce high-value-added products, according to its Party secretary, Yang Xiuyuan. He said Lubao continued its transformation with local government support, largely in helping arrange bank loans at a time when most financial institutions had stopped lending to coking companies because of the sluggish market. The company established Lubao Xinghai New Material Co and, with total investment of 3.1 billion yuan ($448 million), built a production line with an annual output of 100,000 tons of caprolactam - a compound used in nylon, fiber and plastics - that went into operation in July 2017. Yang said the company wants to go further and has invested 1.5 billion yuan to construct facilities that allow Xinghai to produce caprolactam that is closer to the finished product. The subsidiary made 946 million yuan in revenue in 2017, and that is expected to rise to 6 billion yuan after the new facilities go into operation, he said. Other Changzhi companies have also diversified, like Nanye Industry Group, which used to focus on coal mining and sales but has now entered the LED industry. It set up Shanxi High-Tech Huaye Electronic Group in 2013 to make LED screens and displays. With an investment of 5.3 billion yuan, Huaye established a complete industry chain, including LED lamp beads packaging and lighting equipment, its deputy Party secretary, Yuan Xinhua, said. Nanye's transformation was born from its need to develop and has been carried out under guidance from the government, Yuan said. City authorities drafted a development plan for the LED industry early in 2008 when the coal market was still booming, he said. When the market stagnated in 2013, the provincial authorities arranged for coal company employees to visit LED manufacturers to learn about the industry. As of last month, Huaye had produced goods worth almost 1.5 billion yuan this year, recording about 1.1 billion yuan in sales, according to data from the company. Lu'an Group, a Fortune Global 500 company, has also been working on the world's first mass production line for deep-ultraviolet LED chips. Shanxi Lu'an Photovoltaics Technology Co, a subsidiary launched in 2016, is cooperating on the project with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Semiconductors and has initially invested 600 million yuan. The company said the Changzhi government has offered 150 million yuan in financial support. Deng Ming, president of the photovoltaics company, said the production line's annual output capacity will be 30 million chips. Workers began to debug the facility late last month, and the first chip is expected to roll off the assembly line in November. Deep-ultraviolet LED chip technology has the potential to disrupt several markets, according to Deng. For example, he said, it may make refrigerators a thing of the past, as light from the chips could provide a continuous sterilized environment that would prevent food from going bad. China is now neck and neck with Japan and the United States in deep-ultraviolet LEDs, he added. The Changzhi government has vowed to keep the city's industrial transformation going and has drafted a series of ambitious plans. In addition to promoting development of modern coal-related chemicals, high-end manufacturing, new energy vehicles, new materials and new-generation information technology, the city also aims to foster five new industries, including photovoltaics manufacturing, general aviation and medical health. Changzhi's commission for economy and information technology said in a statement that one target is to take the total value of goods produced by its new-materials industry to more than 10 billion yuan by 2020. The figure was 8.3 billion yuan in 2016. The city government also wants the output value of its energy conservation and environmental protection industry to reach 15 billion yuan within the same time frame, double the value recorded in 2016, the commission said. According to the city's development and reform commission, its economic planner, 1,190 projects were launched in Changzhi in the first seven months of 2018, with 819 - almost 70 percent - related to industrial transformation. Changzhi has been gradually transitioning its development mode from one that relies on consuming resources and materials to one that is more high-end and depends on technological innovation, talent, and a continuous and cyclical use of resources, the reform commission said in a statement. wristbands canadacustom silicone bracelets cheapcrossfit silicone wristbandsembossed wristbandsilicone bracelets no minimum order
Proposal says what can be taken there and how waste is handled An iceberg is seen nearby China's research icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, on its way to Zhongshan station in Antarctic, Dec 22, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua] China will soon publish a regulation that urges Chinese travelers to Antarctica to better protect the southernmost continent's environment. The State Oceanic Administration is seeking opinions and suggestions on the draft of the Environmental Protection Regulation on Activities on Antarctica, which was made public on the administration's website on Tuesday. Individuals can submit their thoughts on the regulation before Feb 7. The regulation comes amid a surge in the number of Chinese tourists to the icy continent in past years. According to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, an industry group in the United States, Chinese tourists were outnumbered in 2017 only by the United States, overtaking Australia for the No 2 spot. The association said 5,289 Chinese travelers visited Antarctica last year, 12 percent of the total number of tourists. More than 97 percent of those Chinese tourists landed on the continent. In 2016, 4,095 Chinese people made trips to Antarctica. The draft regulation stipulates that organizers of activities to Antarctica and participants must use measures to reduce the possible impact caused by their activities on Antarctica's environment and ecosystems. It says organizers and participants will pay for what is needed to clean their pollution and restore the environment, adding they also will cover the expenditures for rescues, medical services or evacuations caused by their trips. The document forbids the carrying of toxic objects, those that pollute and nonnative creatures to the ecologically sensitive continent. Collecting and bringing out local soil, rocks and animals also will be banned. Construction work will only be allowed if it is for scientific or educational purposes. Waste generated during a stay on Antarctica must be taken off the continent and items unfit for transportation should be incinerated and the remnants taken back, the draft states. Organizers must submit a report about their activities on Antarctica to oceanic authorities within 30 days of the tour's conclusion. Violators will be blacklisted and prohibited from entering Antarctica for three years, the draft notes. Lin Shanqing, deputy head of the State Oceanic Administration, said that China pays great attention to environmental protection on Antarctica and has spared no effort to regulate activities by its nationals on the continent.
