The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of People’s Republic of China has released the Petrochemical and Chemical Industry Development Plan (2016-2020) (hereinafter, “the Plan”) recently. The Plan puts forward eight key tasks focusing on implementing the strategy of innovation-driven growth, pushing the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, promoting the deep integration of petrochemical and chemical industry, strengthening the management of dangerous chemicals, regulating the construction of chemical industry parks, facilitating the construction of major programs, and expanding the international cooperation, etc.
The Plan points out that, during China’s 13th Five-year Plan, the demands in the petrochemical and chemical industry market will maintain a rapid growth contributing to the pulling of both the country’s steady advance of new urbanization and consumption upgrading. The Chinese residents’ consumption habits are changing from a subsistence type to a developmental type, as a result of which, the demand growth of green, safe and high cost-effective high-end petrochemical and chemical products will exceed that of the traditional industries.
During the 13th Five-year Plan, great progresses will be achieved in the structural adjustment and transformation and upgrading of petrochemical and chemical industry with a distinct improvement in quality and efficiency. The Plan also puts forward that, during the 13th Five-year Plan, the average annual increase of added value of the petrochemical and chemical industry will be at 8% with a small sales profit increase by 4.9% in 2020.
The overcapacity of the traditional chemical products will be effectively resolved, the support capacity of basic raw materials and new chemical materials including olefins and aromatics, etc. will be significantly improved, the output of environment-friendly farm chemicals will increase by 70% with the new fertilizers’ proportion over 30%, and eventually a batch of large enterprise groups with international competitiveness, world-class chemical parks, and new industrialized industry demonstration bases will be established with the petrochemical and chemical industry as the lead, as a result of which, the development quality and competitiveness of the petrochemical and chemical industry will be significantly enhanced.
The scientific research investment will account for 1.2% of the main business income of the petrochemical and chemical industry. As the collaborative innovation system of industry-university-research is increasingly perfected, and a batch of national and industrial innovative platforms will be established in major fields, and breakthroughs will be achieved in key genetic technologies and major complete sets of equipment, all of which will be a batch of promising economic growth points.
Till the end of the 13th Five-year Plan, water consumption per thousand yuan GDP will decline by 23%, at the same time, the energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission will decline by 18%, and total chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen emissions decrease by 10%, total sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions decreases by 15%, and total volatile organic compound emissions in major industries decreases by over 30%. According to the Plan, the integration level of petrochemical and chemical industry in enterprises will be highly improved with the proportion of enterprises that will have realized comprehensive integration reaches 35%. The intelligent plant standard system of the petrochemical and chemical industry will be basically established with a batch of petrochemical intelligent plants and digital workshops being built in industries covering petrochemical, coal chemical, tyre and chemical fertilizers, etc. And certain number of intelligent chemical parks will be established and used as experimental units for the promotion of industry Internet in the petrochemical and chemical industry.
As to the perfection of industrial policies, the Plan has required to draw up the Guidance on the Promotion of Removal and Reconstruction of Dangerous Chemicals Production Enterprises in Urban Populated Areas to push dangerous chemicals production enterprise to move into industrial parks, or close down and exit. It is also required by the Plan to, first, make research on the formulation of the Guidance of the Transformation and Upgrading of Farm Chemicals Industry with the aim at facilitating the industrial structure adjustment in farm chemicals industry, improving safety and environmental protection level, and enhancing core competitiveness; second, to formulate or revise the standardized admittance rules for products of key industries and standards for products of new emerging industries, third, to formulate the guidance documents for the standardization for the development layout of the modern coal chemical industry.