Yangtze River middle reaches: Building competitive industrial clusters

According to the latest planning approved by the State Council in April 2015, the city cluster along the middle reaches of Yangtze River will join forces in scientific and technological innovations, speed up the upgrading of local industrial structure and reduce use of outdated and excess capacity.

The region will be prepared to undertake industrial transfer and upgrade the competitiveness of local industries and products. A series of industrial bases will be built to propel the development of a modern industrial system with distinctive regional characteristics.

Equipment manufacturing

Centering on various major cities, including Wuhan, Changsha, Nanchang, Zhuzhou, Xiangyang and Jingdezhen, the region will make efforts to improve its local equipment manufacturing industry. The cities will seek cooperation in equipment manufacturing technology autonomy, manufacturing flexibility, equipment integration and service networks, so as to strengthen equipment design, manufacturing technology and integration capabilities.

The middle reaches city cluster is striving to build an equipment manufacturing industrial base with worldwide influence by developing a green manufacturing industry. Emphasis will be put on the quality, technology and added value of products during the structural optimization of the local equipment manufacturing industry. Relying on regional cooperation, the industry cluster will support a group of leading enterprises to further enhance the vitality of the industry and explore a wider international market.

Automobile and transport equipment manufacturing

An automobile industrial alliance gathering various cities, including Wuhan, Changsha, Nanchang, Xiangyang, Jiujiang, Zhuzhou, Xiangtan and Jindezhen, will be formed. They will stand shoulder to shoulder to develop new energy-saving products and key automobile technologies. A complete automobile and parts industry chain relying on regional cooperation will be constructed. Also, ship building industry and equipment manufacturing of railway transport and urban rail transit systems will be prioritized in a series of cities.

Thanks to the traffic conveniences brought by the Yangtze River Golden Waterway, the region boasts rich shipbuilding industrial resources. In Wuhan, Yichang, Huanggang, Jingzhou, Yueyang, Yiyang, Jiujiang and Nanchang, the resources will be integrated to accelerate the construction of ship supporting industrial systems and further improve the level of shipbuilding equipment and manufacturing, helping the region to join the global shipbuilding industrial systems that mainly include purchasing, manufacturing, sales, research and development (R&D) systems.

The cities of Wuhan, Xiangyang, Zhuzhou and Nanchang will be the key bases for manufacturing of equipment for railway transport and urban rail transit.

Metallurgical industry

By giving full play to its scale and product advantages, the region will build a steel industry cluster. Large steel enterprises will serve as the leaders in the initiative, merging and reorganizing a group of small and medium-sized enterprises, to form a number of extra-large iron and steel joint enterprise groups.

Relying on abundant non-ferrous metals and rare earth resources such as copper, aluminum, tungsten, lead, antimony and lithium, the region will encourage joint cooperation and technological transformation of key non-ferrous metal enterprises. The non-ferrous metal industry will strive to be high-tech-oriented, intensive, clean and recyclable.

Petrochemical industry

Adhering to the industrial park-oriented, intensive and refinement development modes, the local petrochemical industry will actively build a green petrochemical industry cluster in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River by promoting clean production, strengthened division of labor and cooperative industrial support. The downstream industrial chain will be extended and a circular economy is expected to take shape within the industry.

With industrial bases in Wuhan, Yueyang, Jiujiang and Jingmen, the region will give priority to the development of intensive processing of petrochemical products and foster industrial upgrading.

Home appliance industry

A home appliance industry base in Central China will be constructed with Wuhan, Changsha, Nanchang and Jingzhou leading the way. The cluster will vigorously develop various types of household appliances, supporting products and raw materials. Also, an alliance for home appliance R&D in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River will be established, supporting the transformation and upgrading of the industry in cities such as Ningxiang and Jingmen.

Strategic emerging industries

Making full use of the radiation effect of comprehensive high-tech industrial bases in Wuhan, Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan, as well as specialty high-tech bases such as the airlines and biology Industrial bases in Nanchang, the middle reaches city cluster will develop various strategic emerging industries such as information technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials, biology, energy conservation and environmental protection, new energy and new energy vehicles.