Henan's economic size ranks fifth in China, but traditional industries account for a large proportion and the industrial structure is heavy. It is in a critical period of transformation from old to new driving forces. In order to turn a large economic province into a strong economic province, Henan proposed to cultivate and expand 7 trillion-level industrial clusters and 28 key industrial chains of 100 billion yuan, and promote Henan's industry to climb "high" to "new" through the development of chain groups. The "key projects" on each chain have become key roles, and the active wheel of project construction must drive all the wheels of economic operation to turn together. There is not much "time balance" left in 2024. How is Henan doing, and how can it "add color to Henan"?

It was late at night, but the site of the Henan Provincial Project Construction Work Deployment Meeting was still brightly lit, with field research during the day and exchanges and summaries at night. Recently, working overtime to push the progress of projects has become the norm for key project management departments at all levels in Henan.

In early October, the 14th "three batches" project construction activities in the province were held, which accelerated the pace of economic sprint. "Three batches" means signing a batch, starting a batch, and putting a batch into production. Since 2024, Henan has implemented 5,391 projects with a total planned investment of nearly 3 trillion yuan. How to get the signed projects started as soon as possible and the started projects put into production and achieve results as soon as possible? It has become the most urgent matter for Henan.

At present, Henan has not only established a white list, dispatch, verification and other institutional mechanisms for major project construction, but also built and put into use this major project "battle map" system in 2024, which can monitor the construction of dispatch projects in real time and implement red, orange and yellow three-color early warning management for problem projects.

In Zhoukou, Henan, a "10,000 people helping 10,000 enterprises" digital platform has kept more than 1,500 enterprise assistance cadres busy. In 2024, they collected a total of 626 feedback issues from enterprises. From preferential policies for enterprises, factor guarantees to employment issues, although the demands of enterprises are varied and coordination is difficult, the current completion rate has exceeded 99%.

In order to systematically solve cross-departmental and cross-industry problems, Henan has also established provincial, municipal and county three-level project promotion agencies throughout the province. This roster of the provincial project promotion center brings together all kinds of professional trades.

Leading the changes in the industrial structure and the industrial level with the changes in the project structure. In the first three quarters, the added value of Henan's strategic emerging industries and high-tech manufacturing industries accounted for 24.0% and 13.0% of the above-scale industries, respectively, an increase of 1.6 and 1.0 percentage points over the first half of the year. It is expected to achieve a structural reversal of new and old kinetic energy by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan".

A diamond "polishes" a 10 billion-level industrial chain

Among the 28 key industrial chains in Henan, superhard materials rank first. Artificial diamonds are a common superhard material. Now 4 out of every 10 artificial diamonds in the world are produced in Henan. However, this industrial chain is facing "growing pains". Although the output is large, the efficiency of enterprises needs to be improved. How to make Henan's "diamond drill" more high-end and tougher?

When the reporter came to the recently built Henan Diamond Trading Center, he found that many diamond manufacturers were busy assembling display cabinets and arranging display boards. Some merchants have not yet settled in, but they can't wait to start e-commerce live broadcasts.

Foreign companies have come to look for business opportunities, and the reason is hidden in the solid industry "family background". At present, Zhengzhou has about 200 superhard material-related companies. In the first half of 2024 alone, the output of diamonds will be enough for every Chinese to own a carat of diamonds. The output is getting bigger and bigger, but the local authorities are under great pressure.

Gao Donghui, deputy director of the Zhengzhou Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, introduced that this is the output ratio chart of superhard materials in Henan Province. China accounts for 80% of the output of upstream and midstream, but the proportion of downstream high-end products is only 20%, showing an "inverted triangle" distribution, which has led to a situation where production capacity is high and efficiency growth is slow. Gao Donghui said that in order to change the "inverted triangle" situation, they decided to start with filling the gaps. "Diamond polishing" is an important part of the processing technology of high-end products, but in China, there are only about 2,000 skilled industrial workers, and cultivating "polishing" talents has become a top priority. In the past two days, a gemstone polisher skills competition was held in Zhengzhou, and more than 200 contestants from China competed on the spot. Since 2024, Zhengzhou has held five gemstone processing skills competitions like this. Nearly 10 colleges and universities in Henan have also opened majors related to superhard materials, and cooperated with enterprises to build production training platforms and R&D platforms. At present, more than 1,000 professionals have been trained. While filling the chain, the pace of extending the chain is also accelerating, and the direction of extension is precisely the middle and high end of the industrial chain with higher added value and stronger innovation. In this factory in Zhengzhou Economic Development Zone, partial production has begun before a production line is fully built.

The new products that companies are racing against time for are blue, pink and yellow colored diamonds. Compared with traditional white diamonds, the added value of the products can be increased by more than two times. At the Zhengzhou Abrasives and Grinding Research Institute, diamonds have been developed for new uses beyond diamonds.

Ding Yulong, deputy director of the Superhard Materials Abrasives Research Laboratory of the China Key Laboratory of High-Performance Tools of the Zhengzhou Third Grinding Institute, introduced that the name of this product is a dicing knife. Its blade thickness is only 10 microns, and it can cut 5-7 grooves on a hair, mainly to meet the needs of wafer chip segmentation. They are now also concentrating on the development of diamond application technology in thermal and electrical fields, breaking through the application prospects and ceiling of diamond development.

Right now, Henan is accelerating the layout of diamond applications in cutting-edge technology fields such as aerospace, new generation semiconductors, and ultra-high power devices, so that superhard materials have more "superpowers."

Yang Yong, director of the Materials Industry Department of the Henan Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, introduced that in order to continuously promote the superhard material industry chain to move towards the middle and high-end and key links, we will make every effort to promote the research and development of 56 key technologies of superhard materials and products, and strive to break through more than 30 "final technologies". At present, the industrial added value growth rate of the superhard material industry cluster in Henan Province has reached 20%, and the R&D investment intensity of enterprises above designated size has reached 10.36%.

Innovation consortium on the production line

In order to extend the industrial chain to the middle and high-end, innovation is an indispensable driving force. In Xinxiang, Henan, entrepreneurs and researchers here "seamlessly connect", guided by market demand, write papers on the production line, and "link" the strongest synergy between industry, academia and research.

At the fourth quarter technology docking meeting between enterprises and scientific research institutes in Xinxiang, Henan, both enterprises and universities came prepared. Some enterprises took their own process routes to attract experts to work together; some enterprises brought problems and hoped to hire experts to enter the factory for guidance.

Song Kaiwen, head of the Science and Technology Achievement Transformation and Regional Innovation Section of the Xinxiang Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, introduced that in the fourth quarter, some technical needs had a small climax, and more than 60 items were collected. The current idea is to seize the time to promote a batch of mature ones, regardless of size.

The person in charge introduced that the technical matchmaking meeting was originally held once a quarter. With the increase in corporate demand in the fourth quarter, they plan to increase the number of matchmaking meetings to two or three, which will be held in different universities and institutes to help companies accurately match "technical foreign aid".

Precise matching is only the first step in innovation. A new cooperation model oriented to "market demand" is also gradually taking shape in Xinxiang, Henan. In this membrane material production company, a new production line was officially put into production not long ago, which can process recycled waste plastic bottles into high-end home appliance shells through high-value reuse.

This technology was once shelved at the beginning of research and development because the technical threshold was too high.

In 2023, this company and research institutes such as Zhengzhou University established a joint research and development center. The reporter found that the office of the R&D team of Zhengzhou University and the office of the person in charge of the enterprise are next to each other, with the laboratory downstairs and the production line next to it. The "zero distance" in physical space brings together links such as technology research and development and product production. The entire innovation and research and development process is open to the technical personnel of the enterprise, and the entire production process and data are also open to the scientific research team.

At present, Henan is accelerating the layout of the innovation chain around key industrial chains, and has established 13 key laboratories in China, 110 provincial laboratories, industrial technology research institutes, pilot bases, and provincial innovation consortia of various types. By gathering innovative resources, a highly collaborative innovation system guided by market demand and with enterprises as the main body will be established.

Tao Manxi, member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Henan Provincial Department of Science and Technology, introduced that a bridge from scientific and technological innovation to industrial innovation should be built, focusing on the "7+28+N" industrial system, selecting various major innovation projects, and serving the transformation of scientific and technological achievements throughout the chain and the entire cycle. In the first three quarters, the province's technical contract turnover reached 115.02 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.7%, injecting surging power into the deep integration of Henan's industrial chain, innovation chain, and value chain.

The rise of the central region allows the forward momentum to be organically combined with the transformation trend

The top four economic provinces in China are all in the east, and Henan, the fifth, is from the central region. The rise of the central region and the transformation of new and old kinetic energy are major events, and are at a critical stage of overcoming difficulties.

Henan, the "big guy" of the economy, is running while transforming. The key to the big projects they are focusing on is not only in the word "big" and "fast", but also in the word "transformation" of transformation and conversion, so that the forward momentum and the trend of transformation can be organically combined.

That particularly "hard" industrial chain is not a simple connection and extension at the original level, but an upgrade from the low end of the industrial chain to the middle and high end.

In other words, the "big guy" that is running hard in the fourth quarter is actually climbing stairs, climbing slopes, and climbing higher. What it is competing for is speed, height, and the quality of development. A higher level of industry-university-research cooperation provides more internal motivation for this climb. Let more high quality grow from the large scale of the economy and make the "big guy" stronger. This is the common pursuit of Henan and other economically developed provinces.

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