Daily Times

With the head sheaves whirling on top of the derrick, the century-old No 1 pit of the Kailuan colliery still lifts coal from deep underground. The icon of the old industrial city of Tangshan is also a tourist site.

The shaft, the country’s earliest of its kind that began operation in 1881, is at Kailuan national mining park, a sign of modern industrial heritage that includes the country’s first rail track with a standard gauge. Culture and tourism are just part of the efforts of the mining company and the city’s diversified development.

Like Germany’s Ruhr region, Tangshan, to the east of Beijing, is one of China’s old industrial bases with major coal, steel and chemical industries. As China deepens supply-side structural reform for high-quality growth, the coastal city is struggling to upgrade its traditional sectors, cut pollution and foster emerging sectors through innovation, investment and integrated regional development.

The Kailuan colliery has produced 1.67 billion tonnes of raw coal and 408 million tonnes of clean coal over the past seven decades.

In recent years, the mine has been facing woefully inadequate resource reserves. “The transformation is pressing,” said Zhang Yuliang, a senior executive of Kailuan (Group) Limited Liability Corporation.

To promote structural transformation, the company decided in 2017 to optimize and strengthen its backbone industries – coal, coal chemical industry and modern services – with advanced equipment and technology, and develop strategic emerging industries such as new energy and new materials.

“The corporate research team has been developing new coal chemical products to extend the industry chain toward the high-end,” Zhang said. The company has piloted intelligent mining with one unmanned working face, conducted mixed ownership reform of its subsidiaries, and gone global with a mine-related service business in India and Kyrgyzstan.

As China made cutting overcapacity one of the major tasks in supply-side structural reform in late 2015, Kailuan was assigned to cut coal capacity by 18.55 million tonnes from 2016 to 2020 by the provincial authorities, involving 25,000 workers.

“Kailuan encountered difficulties in the first two years of the reform. My salary was sometimes delayed,” said Li Wei in charge of the company’s electrical and mechanical department.

With a population of about 8 million, Tangshan is aiming to become a window city for economic cooperation in Northeast Asia, a new-type industrialization base in the Bohai Rim area and an important pivot of Beijing’s economic circle. In 2017, Tangshan became one of the country’s first 12 cities or economic zones which are demonstration areas for industrial transformation and upgrading.

Five emerging industries such as intelligent rail transit, robotics, electronics and intelligent instruments, are forming new drivers for the city’s economy.

Home to CRRC Tangshan Co, Ltd, one of China’s major high-speed train manufacturers, the city has established an intelligent rail transit industry alliance and an innovation and development center for the rail transport industry.

In the first quarter, Tangshan’s GDP saw a year-on-year growth of 7.8 percent, the highest growth rate of the city in Q1 since 2014.

“Tangshan is in an overlapping period in which traditional industries experience arduous transformation while emerging industries are being fostered,” said Zhang Gui, an expert on Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integrated development at Hebei University of Technology based in Tianjin.

“Technological innovation is the lifeline for the successful transformation of old industrial bases,” Zhang said. “Tangshan must embrace the new round of industrial revolution backed by the Internet, big data and artificial intelligence.” According to the 2019 Global Cities Outlook report by AT Kearney, an international consultancy firm, Tangshan ranks as the world’s 77th most promising city. From 2013 to 2018, Tangshan has slashed nearly 80 million tonnes in iron and steel production capacity, dismantled and sealed off 147 converters and furnaces, and closed small polluting factories. The number of iron and steel firms in the city was cut by one third, from 58 in 2012 to 38 last year. Apart from zero discharge of waste water, Tangsteel has invested 2.7 billion yuan in a number of projects aimed at reducing emissions and saving energy over the past two years, realizing ultra-low emission in all production lines. The company also took the initiative in cutting the emission of carbon monoxide. “Tangsteel has been pursuing green transformation to realize green manufacturing,” said Wang, chairman of the company.

Last year, the city’s average PM2.5 density fell 9.1 percent year on year to 60 micrograms per cubic meter. This year, it targets a 5-percent fall in PM2.5 density.

In July, a greening project, “the Tangshan Sea of Flowers” in the Kaiping district, will open to the public as part of the city’s efforts to restore damaged environment and develop tourism.