What can Shanxi learn from Jiangxi amid the provincial governors' "same-theme research and investigation"?

In the first half of this year, as the construction of global artificial intelligence computing power infrastructure accelerates, the demand for non-ferrous metal varieties including copper, aluminum, tin, tantalum and indium has been released intensively, leading to a sharp rise in their prices. Statistics from the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association show that from January to June, the prices of copper and aluminum rose by 31.4% and 18.8% respectively, while the growth rates of the three core minor metals tin, tantalum and indium exceeded 40%, 158% and 60% respectively.

Recently, the governors of Jiangxi Province and Shanxi Province went to local areas to conduct research on related industries respectively. Ye Jianchun, Governor of Jiangxi Province, conducted research in Yingtan on promoting the high-quality development of the copper industry. He emphasized that it is necessary to closely follow the direction of intelligence, greening and integration, continuously optimize the whole-chain ecology of the copper industry, take solid steps to build a globally leading highland for the production and application of advanced copper-based new materials, and continuously enhance the influence and competitiveness of the "World Copper Capital".

Lu Dongliang, Governor of Shanxi Province, went deep into Yuanqu County and Wenxi County of Yuncheng City for investigation. In Yuanqu County, Lu Dongliang visited the Tongkuangyu Mine of Northern Copper Industry under Zhongtiaoshan Group to investigate the construction of smart mines, green mining and smelting, development of copper-based new material industry and fulfillment of work safety responsibilities, requiring the enterprise to strengthen innovation-driven development, accelerate green transformation, and strive to build a first-class benchmark enterprise in the non-ferrous metal industry. At Wenxi Yinguang Huasheng Magnesium Industry Co., Ltd., he encouraged the enterprise to give full play to its role as the "chain leader", strengthen scientific research breakthroughs and intensive processing, and drive the whole industrial chain of magnesium metal to upgrade.

Looking back at the economic data of the first half of the year, Shanxi's GDP reached 1174.707 billion yuan, with a growth rate of only 2.1%, ranking the second from the bottom among 31 provinces; the added value of industries above designated size decreased by 0.2% year-on-year, ranking the third from the bottom. It is worth noting that the growth rate of industries above designated size in Shanxi in the first quarter was still 6.4%, which dropped significantly in the first half of the year, behind which is the impact caused by coal price fluctuations.

During this investigation, Lu Dongliang successively presided over the production and operation symposium of Zhongtiaoshan Group and the symposium on promoting the high-quality development of the non-ferrous metal industry. He pointed out that the non-ferrous metal industry is an important measure for Shanxi Province to promote appropriate diversified development. It is necessary to give full play to the advantages of non-coal mineral resources, strengthen resource guarantee and comprehensive utilization, promote the whole-chain efforts of green mining, green smelting and green processing, and promote the in-depth integration of the new energy system and the modern industrial system.

Shanxi has "innate advantages" in the non-ferrous metal industry — in 2025, Shanxi's alumina output reached 20.719 million tons, accounting for 22.4% of the national total; the output of magnesium metal was about 188,000 tons, accounting for 16.7% of the national total; the output of magnesium alloy was 146,000 tons, accounting for 34.8% of the national total, all of which ranked top two in the country. The output of refined copper was 300,000 tons, ranking at the middle level across the country. During this year's National Two Sessions, the Shanxi delegation also put forward a proposal in the name of the whole delegation to support Shanxi in building an important national new energy metal material base.

Although the "family property" is abundant, there is still a gap from the high end of the value chain. In a previous political consultation and suggestion event of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, some members pointed out bluntly that the weak industry is mainly manifested in "four imbalances", namely, the imbalance between resource guarantee and industrial demand, the imbalance between industrial coordination and value improvement, the imbalance between innovation input and transformation demand, and the imbalance between policy guarantee and development demand. In key dimensions such as independent supply, local transformation, cultivation of new quality productive forces and efficiency of factor allocation, the capacity is still insufficient.

As a major resource province that is also not adjacent to the sea or the border and does not have abundant high-end factors, Jiangxi can be used as a reference. As early as 2023, Jiangxi put forward the "1269" action plan for industrial chain modernization, focusing on characteristic advantageous fields such as copper, tungsten and rare earth, and making every effort to promote the quality and efficiency improvement of the non-ferrous metal industry. In 2025, the operating revenue of Jiangxi's non-ferrous metal industry reached 1.08 trillion yuan, becoming the second trillion-level industry in the province after the electronic information industry.

Focusing on the copper industry investigated by the Governor of Jiangxi Province this time, since the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Jiangxi has integrated the copper industry advantages of four regions including Yingtan, Shangrao, Fuzhou and Nanchang, and the copper-based new material cluster created has achieved an annual output value of more than 600 billion yuan. According to the relevant plan, Jiangxi will continue to integrate the industries of the four regions to realize the extension of copper functional materials to high-end application products, and strive to make the cluster's operating revenue exceed 1 trillion yuan and the output of copper-based new materials exceed 5 million tons by 2027.

In addition, Jiangxi also introduces and cultivates a number of high-level innovation platforms based on its advantageous industries. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the Ganjiang Innovation Academy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was established; national-level science and innovation platforms such as the National Rare Earth Functional Materials Innovation Center and the State Key Laboratory of Non-ferrous Metal Structural Materials were successively set up; the provincial key laboratory of copper-based new materials and the construction of the "World Copper Capital" Innovation Valley were launched simultaneously.

It is worth mentioning that shortly before Lu Dongliang's investigation, the preparation for the construction of the Shanxi Provincial Laboratory of New Energy Metal Materials had also started. According to reports, focusing on the key technical problems in the development of the magnesium alloy industry, the laboratory will rely on the discipline advantages of North University of China in metal material design, forming and processing to carry out R&D of high-performance, low-cost and green-related technologies.

In accordance with Shanxi's plan, during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it is necessary to accelerate the promotion of high-quality development of the non-ferrous metal industry, optimize the layout of industrial structure, strengthen the guidance of technological innovation, promote green and low-carbon transformation, accelerate the implementation of digital transformation and intelligent upgrading, improve the ability of resource guarantee, and actively build an industrial system with aluminum, magnesium and copper as the leading sectors, and new energy metals such as gallium and lithium for coordinated development.

This article is from the WeChat official account "City Evolution", author: Yang Huan, published with authorization from 36Kr.