"Baoji Titanium" is well-known. From the "Chang'e Moon Landing" project to the manned spherical cabin of the 10,000-meter deep-sea submersible, to the titanium capillaries implanted in the human body... you can see "Baoji Titanium". Baoji, which ranks first in the country and second in the world in terms of titanium industry scale, enjoys a high reputation in the world. "China Titanium Valley" has become Baoji's "golden business card".
Standing at the new starting point of the "14th Five-Year Plan", the municipal party committee and government vigorously promote the "1459" project of industrial strengthening, focusing on extending, strengthening and supplementing the titanium industry chain, and building a world-class titanium and titanium alloy industry base, to forge a high-quality "titanium chain" for Baoji's high-quality development.
Chain extension: highlighting joint advantages
To build a 100 billion industrial cluster, it depends on the "leading" drive of large enterprises and large groups, and also needs the support of small and medium-sized enterprises. Our city focuses on connecting the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, developing the "aircraft carrier" of the titanium industry, and strengthening the "escort fleet", forming a development trend in the city where leading enterprises lead, private enterprises follow up, and cluster advantages are highlighted.
Strengthening the "leading" can make the industry more attractive. As a leading enterprise in Baoji's titanium industry, Baoti Group Co., Ltd. has undertaken more than 8,000 trial production tasks of new materials for my country's material preparation and cutting-edge technology, and has achieved more than 600 scientific and technological achievements. At the 2021 China Titanium Valley International Titanium Industry Expo held in our city in April this year, the municipal government, Baoti Group Co., Ltd., Northwest Institute of Nonferrous Metals, and Baoji Zhengwei New Materials Technology Co., Ltd. joined forces to reach a cooperation framework agreement to jointly build the Baoji Advanced Structural Materials Research Institute, which is another important step in expanding and strengthening the titanium industry.
As leading enterprises become bigger and stronger, the "siphon effect" of enterprises is becoming increasingly obvious, and more and more related enterprises are settling in Baoji. A few days ago, the reporter walked into the production workshop of Topda Titanium Co., Ltd. in Baoji High-tech Zone, and saw that the operator was setting computer parameters in the control room. A radial forging machine "swinged" four hammers and forged the material at high frequency along the axis of the titanium billet. In just 5 minutes, the billet was stretched and thinned to become a delicate thick-walled tube. Wang Yongjin, the head of the company, said: "With this imported radial forging equipment, the company can charge more than 10 million yuan in labor fees for Baoti processing materials in a year, which also reduces Baoti's manufacturing costs by about 10%." In our city, small and medium-sized enterprises in the field of titanium materials like Topda Titanium Co., Ltd. are like "escort fleets", cooperating with Baoti in division of labor and subdividing fields, making the upstream and downstream industrial chains more complete and harmonious.
At present, our city has gathered more than 590 titanium enterprises of various types led by Baoti Group, forming a complete industrial chain from research and development, production, sales to services. More than 300 types of titanium products and more than 5,000 specifications are produced, including not only national heavy equipment, but also products in the civilian fields such as medical health, sports and leisure. Baoji's 100 billion-level titanium industry cluster is accelerating its growth.
Strengthening the chain: Improving development strength
The commissioning of large projects and the leadership of scientific and technological innovation are the dual engines to maintain the strong momentum of industrial development. Our city has focused on the construction of major investment projects and the construction of application research and development platforms for rare metals such as titanium, which has won the right to speak and the initiative for long-term sustainable and high-quality development for Baoji's titanium industry.
Recently, the construction site of the Zhengwei Baoji New Materials Science and Technology City project has been very busy. Various projects are being carried out in an orderly manner, and it is expected to meet the production requirements by the end of October. Peng Weihua, general manager of Baoji Zhengwei New Materials Technology Co., Ltd., said that Zhengwei has a very mature internationalization, capitalization, and branding promotion path and experience from front-end research and development production to the expansion of the back-end supply chain. After settling in Baoji, it will join hands with hundreds of private titanium companies in Baoji to form a "joint fleet" to bring new opportunities for Baoji's titanium industry to develop high-end titanium materials, open up the civilian market, and communicate with the international market. Focusing on the cultivation of leading enterprises in the titanium industry and the upgrading and transformation of titanium products, our city has planned more than 60 reserve projects, carried out all-round industrial chain investment, and accelerated the implementation of a number of major park projects such as the new materials industrial park with an investment of 10 billion yuan, the titanium and titanium alloy aviation new materials industrial park with an investment of 2 billion yuan, and the titanium and titanium alloy military-civilian integration industrial park with an investment of 1 billion yuan. In the first half of this year, Baoji High-tech Zone alone implemented 11 key titanium and new materials industry technical transformation projects, comprehensively improving the production efficiency of enterprises from the aspects of automation and intelligence.
Innovation is the core of promoting high-quality development of the industry and driving the connotation-based development of the industrial chain. Small, medium and micro enterprises often face difficulties in innovation and development due to lack of talent and funds. In order to further stimulate the development vitality and enhance the strength of our city's titanium industry, our city has seized the "ballast stone" of innovative development of R&D platform construction, continued to strengthen policy guidance, and strengthened support for scientific and technological innovation R&D institutions. It has successively cooperated with universities and research institutions such as Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, and Xi'an Special Flight Institute to introduce think tanks and R&D centers, build incubation bases, engineering technology centers, set up postdoctoral workstations, and reward high-end talents. In Baoji High-tech Zone, where titanium enterprises gather in our city, various industrial parks and enterprises are distributed with 13 national public service platforms, 2 national enterprise technology centers, 7 provincial enterprise technology centers, and 1 titanium industry professional incubator, more than 17,000 domestic first-class titanium experts and high-quality practitioners, and more than 50,000 industrial workers, so that the knowledge creation and technological innovation capabilities of the titanium industry can be comprehensively improved. At the same time, our city has also established a service chain for the creation, application, protection and management of intellectual property rights, and created an incubation chain of "mass innovation space + incubator + accelerator + industrialization", forming a national, provincial and district-level three-level linkage incubation pattern covering seven characteristic industrial clusters, becoming an accelerator for the strong chain of our city's titanium industry.
Supplementing the chain: Accelerating industrial transformation
Baoji's titanium and titanium alloy production accounts for 60% of the country and 20% of the world. The industry is large in scale, but a closer look at the "golden business card" of "China Titanium Valley" still reveals problems such as insufficient innovation vitality and lack of high-end products. How to accelerate industrial transformation and fill the gaps in the industrial chain? Experts, scholars and entrepreneurs have expressed their opinions.
Cao Chunxiao, one of the founders of China's titanium alloy research and application and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at this year's Titanium Expo that the development of Baoji's titanium industry still needs to work hard on innovation, and continuous innovation from raw materials to the entire process can support the improvement of titanium product quality and quantity faster and better. Fang Xin, an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences, said that as Baoji's most advantageous characteristic industry, the titanium industry needs not only the ability to adapt to market demand, but also the spirit of exploration and courage of self-innovation to truly open up the industrial chain and consumption chain, so that high-end products and affordable titanium products can enter the lives of ordinary people and have a broader market space.
Wang Xiongwei, head of the Industry and Information Technology and Commerce Bureau of Baoji High-tech Zone, introduced that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Baoji High-tech Zone will focus on the development positioning of "one valley, two centers and three zones" and implement the "China Titanium Valley" revitalization action, focusing on technical transformation and transformation, key project construction, and industrial ecological optimization. It will lead the large-scale development of clusters with projects as the starting point, drive the connotation development of clusters with innovation as the core, promote the ecological development of clusters with the support of dual innovation carriers, promote the digital development of clusters with information technology as a breakthrough, and ensure the sustainable development of clusters based on policies, striving to achieve a total industrial output value of 80 billion yuan and a comprehensive total income of 110 billion yuan by 2025.
Wang Wensheng, Party Secretary and Chairman of Baoti Group, said that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Baoti Group will further leverage its five advantages of brand, standard, process, inspection and market around the three major industrial sectors of titanium materials, equipment design and manufacturing, and new materials, increase the output of high-end products, improve the industrial chain, and form an industrial cluster. In terms of talent, through a combination of external introduction and internal training, experts and craftsmen who support scientific and technological innovation and industrial development will be cultivated to accelerate the research of key core technologies. Through these measures, the market dominance of mid-to-high-end titanium products will be firmly grasped.
Wang Yongjin said that the slow development of industry supporting and technology in the titanium industry has restricted the promotion and application of titanium and titanium alloys. It is recommended to establish a titanium alloy or non-ferrous alloy technology training school to train technical workers and professional front-line technicians for the development of the titanium and titanium alloy industry; at the same time, professionals from different industries will be organized from time to time to explain their needs, and industry experts will be organized to report on key technologies that have been broken through, effectively communicate information, and realize information sharing.
Standing at a new starting point, it is time to forge ahead. The blueprint for Baoji's "14th Five-Year Plan" has been drawn up. Baoji's titanium industry is striding towards better quality, longer industrial chain and higher added value, providing important support for the construction of a world-class titanium and titanium alloy industrial base.
