A roar rises to the heavens, stirring the golden sands; a mighty wind rises from the south, forever surging.

The surging "Industrial Revolution" of Naiman is steering the course of its leapfrog development, sweeping across the sea of ​​sand.

With the Jing'an Nickel-Based New Materials Project, a core project and a key component of the stainless steel industry chain, nearing completion, and a number of downstream projects in the supply chain, such as Zhongbo and Yanlei, under construction, the stainless steel industry in Naiman Banner, Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia, has entered the fast lane of accelerated development by 2023. By establishing a nickel-based circular economy, promoting the development of the entire industrial chain, and striving to build the largest stainless steel and product production base in Northeast China, Naiman Banner will be the first to do so.

Building the Foundation of the Stainless Steel Industry from Scratch

At the start of the new year, the construction site of the Naiman Banner Green Low-Carbon Nickel-Ferroindustrial Park is sprinting at full speed, ushering in a new era of stainless steel project construction in Naiman.

"The plates are in place, ready to go!" With the installation of the final exterior wall panel, the stainless steel rolling and pickling project, built by Inner Mongolia (Naiman) Jing'an Nonferrous Metal Materials Co., Ltd., has successfully completed its main installation. Li Wenyou, project manager at Naiman Jing'an Nonferrous Metal Materials Co., Ltd., explained, "Jing'an has now built 18 nickel-iron alloy, four silicon-manganese alloy, six ferrochrome alloy, as well as 1.2947 million tons of stainless steel and 2.2 million tons of rolling and pickling production lines."

With the steady progress of Jing'an's chain extension projects, Jing'an Stainless Steel is rapidly rising, maintaining its position at the forefront of the city's economic development. The development of nickel-based new materials projects, a crucial indicator, has significantly enhanced Naiman's rise.

For the people of Naiman, stainless steel production is a near-achievable goal. As a key component of the city's five major industrial clusters, Naiman will develop a high-end nonferrous metal industry base, including high-quality special steel and high-performance stainless steel products, to create a multi-billion-yuan nickel circular economy industrial cluster. Jing'an, emerging as a necessary step, will be a strong support point for this multi-billion-yuan nickel circular economy industrial cluster. From Existence to Excellence: Extending the Stainless Steel Industry Chain

Today, the Naiman Green Low-Carbon Ferronickel Industrial Cluster is seeing a steady stream of new projects, standard factory buildings standing side by side, and a steady stream of industrial workers. The industry's scale continues to grow year by year.

At the construction site of Tongliao Zhongbo Building Materials Technology Co., Ltd.'s 50,000-ton annual cold-rolled stainless steel sheet project, vast rowhouses are rising from the ground, and groups of workers in yellow hardhats and blue overalls are bustling about.

"We primarily rely on stainless steel raw materials produced by Jing'an for further processing. In the future, we will install two cold-rolled sheet equipment for building maintenance structures," said Liu Wenbo, Chairman of Zhongbo. The coated stainless steel product, designed to replace the existing color-coated steel sheet, offers superior corrosion resistance and strength compared to the current standard carbon color-coated steel sheet. Once the project goes into production, it will fill a gap in the downstream stainless steel product chain in Inner Mongolia.

Zhongbo's presence has undoubtedly boosted the Naiman stainless steel industry chain. Today, Naiman boasts eight stainless steel-related enterprises, six projects under construction, and five nickel slag disposal companies within the park, capable of processing 7 million tons of nickel slag annually. Upstream, Naiman will focus on projects for raw materials such as ferronickel, silicomanganese, and high-carbon ferrochrome alloys. Downstream, it will focus on projects in areas such as stainless steel profiles, tableware and kitchenware, precision castings, and medical devices. The output value of the entire industry chain is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

From Excellence to Strength: Concentrating the Strength of the Stainless Steel Industry

"Naiman Banner has long prioritized investment attraction and project construction as key measures to stabilize growth, promote investment, adjust the industrial structure, and promote high-quality development. We have focused on strengthening infrastructure, continuously optimizing the business environment, comprehensively enhancing the industry's carrying capacity, and solidly promoting the full development of nickel-based new materials. Our products are gradually moving towards the mid- to high-end market." Xuan Dongsheng, Deputy Mayor of Tongliao Municipal People's Government, stated this in his speech at a special investment promotion conference for the Northern China Stainless Steel Industry held in Naiman Banner on November 12, 2023.

For Naiman, industrial agglomeration is no longer a distant concept but a tangible, tangible development reality. This promotional event invited over 40 enterprise groups from Shandong, Jilin, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shanghai, Hebei, Guangdong, and other provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions to discuss investment and cooperation, and to jointly explore development strategies. That same day, five production projects, including stainless steel pipe manufacturing, cold-rolled stainless steel strip, and steel castings, were successfully signed and established, injecting new vitality into the growth of the stainless steel industry and the transformation and development of Naiman Banner.

A careful analysis reveals that the full industrial chain development model has become one of the key competitive advantages in my country's stainless steel industry. As a stage for the dramatic performance of these projects, today, the full industrial chain development of the Naiman stainless steel cluster is unfolding in a myriad of ways, like a rising sun bursting forth amidst a sky of rosy clouds, raising hopes for Naiman's industrial revitalization.

Naiman has already achieved its production target for ferronickel and is now transitioning from iron to steel. A patch of sand is poised to become the cradle of stainless steel, showcasing Naiman's prowess to the world. (Wang Yang)