Posted on 15 Dec 2021
China's National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) listed 16 aspects to focus on in 2022 in the domestic industrial sector for stability and high-quality development, as the sector is the core part of the national economy, and its stability is essential for a stable domestic economy, according to their joint statement released on December 14.
This is the follow-up after Beijing set the tone for the country's economy for 2022 during the annual Central Economic Work Conference over December 8-10, as related ministries are expected to release their aligned guidelines for the sectors under their responsibility, and MIIT, for example, is the country's top governing body for the industrial sector, Mysteel Global understands.
Among the 16 aspects, Beijing reiterates the significance of the coordination among coal, power houses, oil and gas sectors to ensure energy supply to households and key industrial enterprise, with all the coal-fired power houses and central heating service providers allowed to postpone paying their taxes and fees for the fourth quarter.
Those strategic projects including some new infrastructures construction programs during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) should be launched as soon as possible and those ongoing projects need to accelerate for earlier completion, according to the joint statement.
As for crucial industrial sectors such as new energy vehicles (NEVs) and medical appliances, a complete supply chain should be built up to be capable of dealing with emergencies, and the two top governing bodies also request for optimizing the location of NEVs plants nationwide and promoting NEVs sales across the country by building more related infrastructures such as charging poles at a faster pace.
Other than NEVs, Beijing will also encourage the utilization of intelligent electrical home appliances, and eco-friendly construction materials in the rural areas in 2022 via the various means including trade-ins.
For 2022, close monitoring is called for where supplies of bulk commodities and related prices are concerned, and state reserves should be released whenever needed while excessive speculating trading should be curbed in these markets, according to the statement.
As for steel, nonferrous metals, construction materials, petrochemical and coal-fired power houses, technological and facilities upgrading should be accelerated to supply higher-quality goods, zero tolerance will be applied to any illegitimate and illegal iron and steelmaking capacity expansion, and steel, aluminum, cement and glass industries should continue with the endeavours to reduce energy consumption and carbon emission.
Some market sources have interpreted this as a signal of no further on-year steel output cuts for 2022, which may be premature.
In the statement, the two governing bodies also acknowledged the existing bottlenecks in the industrial sector such as the lack of human resources in the industrial sector, the hiccups and rising costs in logistics for foreign trade, and the difficulty in financing, higher financing costs on the country's medium, small, and micro-sized enterprises, and part of the solution is to delay the fourth-quarter taxes and fees payments among these companies.
Source:Mysteel Global
