August Steel Downstream Industry News

Real estate

SHANGHAI, Aug 31 (SMM) - On August 20, 2020, the People's Bank of China and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development held a meeting with 12 property developers and introduced the "three red lines” policy. The "three red lines” refers to the 70% ceiling on liabilities to assets after excluding advance proceeds from projects sold on contract, 100% cap on net debt to equity, and cash to short-term borrowing ratio of at least one. One year after the introduction of the policy, the average asset-liability ratio and the average asset-liability ratio after excluding advance receipts at the top 100 real estate companies stood at 78.7% and 70.9%, respectively, which was a year-on-year decline of 0.7 percentage point and 0.9 percentage point. The average net debt ratio was 94.6%, a decrease of 9.6 percentage points from the previous year. The short-term debt solvency of the top 100 real estate companies is maintained at a relatively high level, and the average cash/short-term debt ratio stood at 1.7.

Machinery

The "Medium and Long-term Development Plan for the Automobile Industry", which was issued in 2017, proposed to promote the research and development of advanced fuel vehicles, hybrid vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles, as well as to encourage the development of alternative fuel vehicles in natural gas, biomass and other resource-rich areas, to allow vehicles to be marked as oil and gas dual-use when they leave the factory, and to carry out trials and promote applications to facilitate the diversified development of energy used in vehicles. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said it will actively cooperate with relevant departments to formulate hydrogen energy development strategies, and support the research and development of hydrogen internal combustion engines.

The MIIT also proposed that it will further evaluate the adaptability and differences of the current standard system based on the technological progress and application promotions of hydrogen engines, study relevant standards in advance, promote the formulation of urgently needed standards as appropriate, and provide strong support to the scientific and rational development of hydrogen vehicles.

Automobile

Recently, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the National Energy Administration has officially approved the fuel cell vehicle demonstration application Shanghai city cluster as the first of its kind in China.

The "1+6" Shanghai city cluster is composed of Shanghai, Suzhou, Nantong, Jiaxing, Zibo, Ningxia Ningdong Energy and Chemical Base, and Ordos, linking industry chains in the Yangtze River Delta region. The new model of fuel cell vehicle demonstration city cluster, which focuses on the “medium and long distance + medium and heavy-duty transport networks” application scenarios, aims to establish a fuel cell vehicle industry cluster with the largest scale, the best institutional environment, and the strongest overall competitiveness by making breakthroughs in core components, developing high-end products and forming Chinese standards.

Home appliances

Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment jointly issued the "Notice on Encouraging Home Appliance Manufacturers to Carry on Recycling Target Responsibility," which has put forward a series of policies to encourage home appliance manufacturers to implement recycling. According to the "Notice", China will foster a batch of demonstration home appliance manufacturers to carry on the recycling target responsibility by 2023, establish a batch of reproducible and promotable recycling models and practices, significantly improve the standardised recycling rate of key household appliances, and greatly improve the ability of main participants in the home appliance recycling and processing market.

Shipbuilding

Recently, the Guangdong Provincial Government stated that it will provide a series of policies including financial subsidies, supporting facilities and fuel supply, maintenance support system and crew training for the construction, transformation and operation of LNG-powered inland waterway ships. Six LNG re-fuelling stations will be put into operation in Guangdong by 2021. Guangdong also plans to build 50 LNG-powered ships and renovate 300 LNG-powered ships by 2022 and establish demonstration projects for LNG-powered inland water ships. By 2025, the application scale of LNG-powered ships will be further expanded, and the layout of LNG refuelling stations will be further improved, forming a more complete Pearl River Delta inland waterway LNG-powered ship transportation network.

Transport infrastructure

The Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Science and Technology recently jointly issued the "Opinions on Speeding up the Construction of a Transport Networks Driven by Scientific and Technological Innovation". It is proposed that by 2025, basic research in transportation and applied basic research will be significantly strengthened, breakthroughs in key core technologies will be achieved, integration between cutting-edge technologies and transportation will be accelerated, and a preliminary scientific and technological innovation system that facilitates the construction of a strong transportation country will be established. By 2035, basic research and original innovation capabilities in the transportation sector will be fully enhanced, key core technologies will be independent and controllable, cutting-edge technologies will be fully integrated with transportation, and a scientific and technological innovation system that meets the needs of a strong transportation country will be basically established.