"The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Party has important guiding significance for the steel industry to overcome the current difficulties, cope with the challenges on the road ahead, and further promote high-quality development." This expanded council meeting provides a good opportunity for us to further study and implement the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee."

"In the first half of the year, the characteristics of the steel industry entering the 'stock optimization' stage are increasingly obvious. Looking forward to the second half of the year, China's steel demand is basically stable, stable and excellent, and there is quality."

"At present, the steel industry is facing many difficulties, but opportunities and challenges coexist, and there must be a rainbow behind the wind and rain."

On July 31, the eighth (expanded) meeting of the sixth session of the China Iron and Steel Association was held in Xiongan. Leaders of relevant ministries, steel operators, and industry experts gathered together, based on the key issues facing the development of the current steel industry, focusing on the broad prospects of China's steel to make the world a better place, accurately interpreting the development policy of the steel industry, analyzing and predicting the economic situation and changes in supply and demand, sharing the development experience of outstanding enterprises, and further concentrating on tackling difficulties in the new situation. Confidence and determination to achieve high-quality development in transformation and upgrading.

Have a clear understanding of the major contradictions and strengthen confidence in development

"From the perspective of steel production and consumption, steel production declined slightly, the strength of domestic demand weakened, the apparent consumption decline of crude steel was greater than the decline in production, the contradiction between supply and demand was prominent, steel prices continued to be low, superimposed raw material prices easy to rise hard to fall and other factors, and industry profits declined year-on-year." The operation of the industry shows a "three high and three low" situation of high output, high cost, high export, low demand, low price and low efficiency. Yao Lin, president of the Steel Association, Secretary of the Party Group and chairman of the China Mineral Resources Group, summed up the characteristics of the operation of the steel industry in the first half of the year, and frankly said, "Abundant supply capacity and weakening demand intensity are the main contradictions facing the steel industry, the foundation of the new dynamic balance of supply and demand has not been firmly established, and it is difficult to restore and improve the economic efficiency of the industry."

Behind this, the habit of "mass production and low price to win is still in", and some steel enterprises continue to pursue the "internal roll" development model of scale efficiency, which restricts the high-quality development of the industry. With the market expected to improve in the second quarter, some large enterprises, some areas of rebar, wire and other production and inventory growth significantly, the recent release of some electric furnace steel enterprises production, inventory increase fast, aggravate the regional market supply and demand contradiction, steel prices are still at a low level.

"The meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held recently stressed the need to strengthen industrial self-discipline, prevent 'internal volume' vicious competition, strengthen the market survival of the fittest mechanism, and smooth the exit channels of backward and inefficient production capacity." This points out the direction for the steel industry to further promote supply-side structural reform." Huo Fupeng, deputy director of the Industry Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, said: "The contradiction of oversupply of steel has become increasingly prominent, and product structure adjustment has become an urgent need. It is hoped that steel enterprises can accurately grasp the development environment, accelerate technological innovation, take the initiative to docking and lead the new needs of downstream industries, achieve green and low-carbon development, and transform from traditional producers to brand service providers integrating research and development, production and sales."

"The steel industry is an advantageous industry and a competitive industry. Especially in recent years, with the continuous advancement of supply-side structural reform, the level of high-end, intelligent and green development of the industry has significantly improved, and it has also laid a good foundation for the next high-quality development of the industry." Zhang Haideng, deputy director of the raw material industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, encouraged everyone, but also stressed that "you must pay attention not to roll."

In response to the policy uncertainty that enterprises are generally worried about, Zhang Haolong, deputy director of the atmospheric Environment Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, also gave enterprises a "reassurance" : "Environmental protection policy requirements are continuous, and the mechanism will be more perfect."

Guo Bin, deputy secretary of the Party Group and general manager of China Mineral Resources Group, called: "At present, steel consumption demand has entered a plateau period, steel enterprises should strengthen self-discipline, inhibit the impulse to increase production, and strictly implement the control policy of crude steel production." At the same time, the relevant departments should strengthen the governance of steel exports, encourage the export of high value-added products, curb the disorderly export of low-end steel, and crack down on illegal exports."

"At the production end, grasp the rhythm of production according to demand to achieve a dynamic balance between supply and demand; On the export side, guide orderly export and establish the image of China as a steel power." Duan Lian, director of the Energy Resources Products Trade Division of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, also suggested that the industry continue to strengthen self-discipline and jointly create a good market competition atmosphere.

The understanding of the market situation in the whole industry is further unified, and the consensus is further consolidated - this round of market adjustment is a deep adjustment in the total steel consumption in the long-term decline, different from the previous rise in the stage of supply and demand imbalance, contradictions and problems will not be automatically resolved over time. The meeting called for enterprises to attach great importance to, actively respond to, always maintain self-discipline, resolutely put into action, dynamically adjust the pace of production, and jointly maintain a benign operation of the market.

Study their own advantages to improve quality and efficiency

From "incremental development" to a new development stage of "stock optimization", how can steel enterprises achieve stable and sustainable development of the industry through their own high-quality development?

"For the steel industry, in the process of expanding domestic demand and integrating supply-side reform, all relevant market players should form high-level customized solutions as far as possible." Jia Kang, a famous economist, said that one of the core concepts of high-quality development is "optimization structure", and the integration of data and reality and green and low-carbon are also unavoidable keywords.

Huang Yongjian, a member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of Hesteel Group, introduced the concrete measures of Hesteel to vertically promote the transformation of "steel to materials, manufacturing to service", promote the extension of the steel industry chain to high-end manufacturing, horizontally promote the "collection of similar businesses and restructuring of similar businesses", and accelerate the process chain to build a value chain and an efficiency chain.

Longteng special Steel insist on market segmentation, adhere to differentiated competition, sales profit margin to maintain the industry leader, set up a "small and beautiful" model. Xu Li, chairman and general manager of the company, said when sharing experience that always adhere to the differentiated road of green, low-carbon and high-quality development is the primary task and inevitable choice of Longteng Special Steel.

Wang Yongsheng, secretary of the Party Committee and chairman of Taishan Iron and Steel Group, believes that in the long run, the stainless steel industry still has great potential for development, especially there is a lot of demand space to expand, Taishan Iron and Steel will continue to deepen the field of stainless steel.

Zhou Zhidong, secretary of the Party Committee and chairman of Sichuan Metallurgical Control Group, said that the key to making money for electric furnace short-process steelmaking enterprises is to go deeper, such as establishing a coordination mechanism for scrap steel.

All along, Puyang Iron and Steel in the production and operation of cost, quality priority, rapid response to the market, has achieved good benefits. Puyang Iron and Steel Group chairman Guo Longxin believes that as long as they do their own positioning, Puyang will be able to have a place in the future market.

Qu Tao, secretary of the Party Committee and chairman of Ningbo Iron and Steel, said that Ningsteel is also thinking about how to transform from a product supplier to a comprehensive product service provider. In recent years, Ningsteel has fully implemented the "1+3+α" product excellence strategy of differentiation, customization and refinement, which has better met the development needs of regional market manufacturing clusters.

As Xia Nong, vice president of the Steel Association, said: "The inertia of thinking to win by quantity and the pessimistic view of industry development are wrong." Entrepreneurs are increasingly aware that the iron and steel industry to take the road of high-quality development requires each iron and steel enterprises to unswervingly do their own things, study their own competitiveness, take the initiative to adapt to changes in demand, while resolutely implementing the national output control, industry self-discipline and other requirements, and jointly maintain the dynamic balance of supply and demand, benign development of the market order.

"The questions were very accurate and the suggestions were very good." "We will work together to achieve the overall goal of further comprehensively deepening reform." The participants believed that the meeting made a systematic analysis and research on the issues of concern to everyone, which provided guidance for us to understand the situation, overcome difficulties, and promote the steel industry to achieve higher quality, more efficient and more sustainable development at a higher starting point and at a higher level.

Jiang Wei, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Steel Association, vice president and Secretary-General, said that after the meeting, the Steel Association will continue to strengthen service awareness under the guidance of various ministries, under the leadership of the Council, with the strong support of all member units, further strengthen service awareness, improve service methods, improve service quality, in accordance with the work requirements of the president's deployment, do a good job of implementation, scientific planning, and orderly promotion.