Editor's note
In April 2022, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and The State Council issued the Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a National Unified Large Market (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions). The purpose of building a large unified national market is to break local protection and market segmentation, break through the key blocking points that restrict the economic cycle, promote the unimpeded flow of commodity factor resources on a larger scale, and solve the problem of inequality, blockage, and insufficiency of producers, distributors, and distributors. Building a large unified national market is the institutional basis for building a modern economic system, an important connotation of building a new development pattern, and the core support for high-quality development.
In 2023, the Central Economic Work Conference pointed out that it is necessary to "accelerate the construction of a unified large market across the country, and strive to break all forms of local protection and market segmentation" and "give play to the advantages of a super-large-scale market and strong production capacity." On December 18, 2023, when presiding over an executive meeting of The State Council, Premier Li Qiang stressed the importance of building a unified large market across the country to unleash the potential of domestic demand, unblock the great domestic cycle, and promote the construction of a new development pattern. On December 26, 2023, the State New Office held a regular briefing on The State Council policy on the progress of accelerating the construction of a national unified large market, and the four departments of the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Transport and the General Administration of Market Supervision collectively deployed the construction of a unified large market. A series of actions for the national unified large market construction again press the "fast forward key".
The construction of a national unified large market has an unusual significance for the steel industry. This issue focuses on the topic of "The breakthrough idea of the steel industry under the accelerated construction of the national unified large market".
Steel traders are calling for an end to local and industrial protectionism
A few days ago, the reporter of China Metallurgical News interviewed some steel trade company operators for the problems and difficulties encountered in the process of establishing a national unified steel market.
The biggest "blocking point" of the national unified steel market: protectionism
More than a year has passed since the release of the "Opinions", and the slow progress in establishing a national unified large market in the field of steel trade is one of the biggest reasons for protectionism. It has become a "blocking point" in the construction of a national unified steel market.
"Protectionism has always existed in the steel market, especially when the steel market is down." Ren Qingping, chairman of Shanghai Wubo Steel Structure Materials Co., LTD., pointed out in an interview with China Metallurgical News that "traders have been plagued by protectionism in the course of their operations. One is local protectionism, in which local governments invest or lead projects that use locally produced steel; The other is industry protectionism, especially central enterprises and large local state-owned enterprises, which invest or lead investment projects, designate the material suppliers of the system. This excludes suppliers of other systems and creates an artificial barrier to the creation of a large national steel market."
Market research shows that there are different forms of local protectionism in the field of steel trade, some are directly communicated by local steel mills and local government project authorities, the explicit use of local steel materials in the tender documents, and some are implied in the tender documents to exclude foreign steel clauses. This situation is more obvious in the steel market downturn, local governments in order to protect the local economy, at the cost of violating the law of the market, the introduction of local protectionist measures. In the industry protectionism, the senior management of the group often forcibly specifies that the items of the system will be supplied by the material purchasing department of the system regardless of whether the material purchasing department of the system has the ability to supply, in order to increase the revenue of the system. This often leads to delivery is not timely, quality inspection errors. Some material departments simply subcontract the procurement to qualified and experienced third parties, so that they are responsible for the supply, which increases the procurement cost.
Ren Qingping believes that protectionism will cause prices to be distorted or inflated, damaging the interests of owners, or be depressed and damaging the interests of steel mills. Many steel traders believe that the existence of protectionism not only sets up obstacles for the establishment of a national unified steel market, but also seriously interferes with the normal trading order of steel, intensifies unfair competition, and ultimately damages the interests of steel mills, steel traders and end consumers.
Steel traders call for the establishment of a national unified steel market, we must as soon as possible, thoroughly eliminate all kinds of protectionism. The construction of the national unified steel market is a complex systematic project, in the construction process, it is necessary to exert the power of legislation and administration, adhere to the goal orientation and problem orientation, adhere to the treatment of both symptoms and root causes and the combination of strengths and weaknesses, effectively form a set of relevant institutions and mechanisms, laws and supporting systems, and popularize the social consciousness based on rules and respect for the market. Only by clarifying the boundary between the government and the market, performing their respective duties, and complying with unified rules and laws, can we truly establish and achieve a unified national steel market.
Once the "Opinions" was published, many steel traders are looking forward to the early establishment of an efficient and standardized, fair competition, fully open national unified steel market, so as to break local protection and market segmentation, open up the key blocking points restricting the economic cycle, promote the smooth flow of commodity factor resources in a wider range, and promote the steel market to be more standardized, healthy and orderly development.
Unifying the big market has many benefits: it can reduce the three major costs and stimulate trading activity
"The establishment of a national unified steel market is conducive to reducing transaction costs, logistics costs and financial costs." Steel traders told "China Metallurgical News" reporter.
Specifically, transaction costs involve many factors such as regional market access, customer supplier intensity, futures market activity, and market sourcing convenience. The smoother and more prosperous the steel market, the lower the transaction costs.
Logistics costs include logistics facilities and labor costs from production to consumption. The connectivity and smoothness of logistics facilities determine the level of logistics costs. The "Opinions" will "build a modern circulation network" as the core measure to promote the reduction of logistics costs, from the construction of a national logistics hub network, the development of multimodal transport and third-party logistics and other new logistics formats, accelerate digital construction and other aspects, to promote the cost reduction and efficiency of logistics in the whole society.
Financial cost involves capital cost, credit cost, inventory cost affected by supply chain management and so on. In the measures to accelerate the development of a unified capital market, the "Opinions" put forward the development of supply chain finance and provide financial products that direct the operation of each circulation link, which will help reduce the financial cost of steel circulation.
There are operators engaged in scrap trade said: "scrap trading, there are differences in tax policies in different regions, such as scrap recycling, although the new fiscal and tax policy of scrap is landed, but there is still a certain gap with the requirements of the unified market; The levy of stamp duty on commodity trading is also different in different parts of the country, different nature of the enterprise there are differences in the collection standards, the general requirements are levied according to the amount of three thousandths of sales, but the unit price of bulk commodities is usually high, the profit of the trade link is low, and the tax cost of trading enterprises is high. The establishment of a national unified market will effectively reduce transaction costs, promote the flow of resources, and stimulate trade activity.
Therefore, steel trade enterprises have great expectations for the establishment of a national unified steel market. They said that they hope to do a good job in point-to-point upstream and downstream logistics distribution and resource allocation, reduce intermediate circulation links, and reduce circulation costs; By integrating the control costs of service-related steel enterprises, the service value of the steel trade industry to the circulation link is reflected, and high-quality resource allocation and distribution services are provided for upstream and downstream steel enterprises, contributing to the construction of a unified national steel market.
Ren Qingping believes that the steel traders who survive the baptism of the market now generally have very mature procedures and professional experience in the procurement management, quality inspection, logistics and capital operation of steel products, which is the result of the division of labor and cooperation in the market economy. "It is hoped that local governments, steel mills and central soes will correctly grasp the law of market operation from the height of a unified large market, create a healthy and fair competition environment in the steel market, and take 'breaking the institutional barriers that hinder the market-oriented allocation of various production factors and the circulation of goods and services' as the core goal of further reducing market transaction costs." A series of measures such as "strengthening the unification of basic market institutions and rules" were introduced; Strictly implement the "national list" management model to break the protection of regional steel brands in some markets; Maintain a unified fair competition system, comprehensively clean up all kinds of policies that discriminate against foreign enterprises and foreign enterprises, implement local protection, and effectively avoid policy differences between state-owned enterprises and private enterprises in steel products, so as to achieve a truly unified national steel market." 'he said.
Build a unified data factor market to accelerate digital transformation
As a new production factor driving economic operation, data factors can empower traditional production factors such as labor, capital, land and technology, reduce market transaction costs, improve resource allocation efficiency, play a multiplier effect, and realize value addition.
As a representative of the traditional manufacturing industry, the steel industry urgently needs to build a unified large market of data elements, accelerate digital transformation, promote new quality productivity, and promote quality change, efficiency change, and power change in the steel industry.
Understand the essence of data elements to unify the big market
At present, giving full play to the advantages of massive data resources and rich application scenarios in the steel industry, accelerating industrial data sharing, enabling the transformation of the real economy, and cultivating new quality productivity are of great strategic significance for the construction of a modern industrial system and the construction of a manufacturing power.
Promoting the unification of data elements and the large market is the theoretical support for enriching the Chinese-style modernization construction system. As a key element of new quality productivity, data can penetrate into all aspects of production, distribution, circulation and consumption, optimize the allocation and combination of factors, and reduce the dependence of traditional industries such as steel on general factors. Grasping the characteristics of data elements and their value laws, improving the new data production relations, and exploring the synergy, integration and empowerment effects brought by the integration of data elements are the theoretical support for enriching the Chinese-style modernization construction system.
Promoting the unified big market of data elements is the realistic demand for achieving high-quality economic development. The marginal driving effect of traditional production factors on economic growth has weakened, so the construction of a unified large market of data factors, the promotion of the free circulation of factors in a larger space, the full release of the value of data factors, and the efficient enhancement of the quality and efficiency of the real economy such as the steel industry with the digitalization of all factors is the realistic demand for achieving high-quality economic development.
Promoting the unified market of data elements is a strategic choice for building a modern industrial system. High-end, intelligent, green, integration is the internal requirements and fundamental trend of the development of modern industrial system. The transformation of traditional industries such as steel must rely on data elements, achieve digital industrialization and industrial digitization, and foster new industries, new business forms and new models. The large market of unified data elements can give play to the advantages of agglomeration and promote the quality and efficiency of the industrial chain.
The digital transformation of the steel industry needs to unlock the potential of data
Unified data element market is the key to realize the full circulation and effective supply of data. At present, the data factor market is in the stage of accelerating cultivation, and it lacks the overall formulation of basic systems, technical norms and governance systems. The digital transformation of the steel industry is faced with problems such as unclear data use rights, non-uniform classification standards, monopoly of large enterprises, and data leakage risks, which restrict the release of data potential and restrict industrial transformation and upgrading, and need to promote the unification of data asset standards, data platform technology, and data governance system.
Data asset standards should be uniform. The standardization of data assets is the basis of the unified market of data elements. The steel industry generates a large number of data and complex application scenarios, but the current data asset classification, asset pricing, asset management and other systems are still in the exploration stage, the lack of unified industry standards, limiting the horizontal and vertical flow of data elements, it is difficult to carry out the market allocation of data elements.
Data platform technology should be unified. Data assets can be shared is the key to a unified large market of data elements. The steel industry has many industrial chain levels, the whole production process is "black box", and there are data segmentation and "islands" across regions and departments, resulting in low degree of collaboration between upstream and downstream businesses, difficult risk management and control, and difficult to achieve interconnection, integration and utilization, and co-governance and sharing. It is necessary to build a unified and shareable data platform to realize the unified data of business, technology and resources, and fully release the value of data elements.
The data governance system should be unified. Data asset management is the guarantee of a unified market of data elements. The production of the steel industry involves multiple processing processes such as iron making, steel making, and steel rolling, and the management of data resources is difficult, and the demand for the flow of data elements across departments and levels and the segmentation system of sub-department supervision are difficult to adapt, resulting in multiple management, unclear rights and responsibilities, and lack of overall coordination. How to balance development and security, balance efficiency and risk, and coordinate data protection and openness requires multi-level, multi-field and multi-department collaboration.
Steel industry data factor market construction to promote "four changes"
Building a large unified market for data elements is a long-term process that requires a long time to work. The core problems facing the construction of data element market in the steel industry are non-uniform data standards, unimpeded data transactions, and uncoordinated data governance. To this end, it is necessary to take "data elements" as the core, promote the "four transformations" of data elements, factor assets, asset services, and service industrialization, and realize the traceability, sharing, and trust of data in the steel industry.
First, we need to promote data factionalization. Data factionalization is the premise of forming new quality productivity. The digital transformation of the steel industry has the characteristics of process complexity and scene diversity, it is necessary to adhere to the global planning, overall layout, overall promotion, unified integration of various types of internal and external business system data, so as to achieve "should be saved, can be collected, hierarchical management", and form a three-dimensional digital steel ecosystem. Explore the establishment of a data analysis system applicable to the steel industry, unify data coding and standardize data standards, break the "fragmentation" of data across regions, industries and departments, build a multi-regional, multi-field and multi-level collaborative data collection, processing and integration mechanism, create a high-quality shared data pool, and activate the potential of data elements.
Second, we will promote the capitalization of factors of production. Factor capitalization is the basis of tradable data circulation. Only by modeling data with different business attributes and different frequencies according to standards and norms can element assets be formed and data can be effectively utilized. It is necessary to improve the data resource specifications of the steel industry, form a data asset map, build a data asset trading standard system that connects market players horizontally and runs vertically through the enterprise sector, and open up barriers to data asset trading. Formulate standards and specifications for enterprise-level data assets, clarify the mechanism of enterprise data authorization, evaluation and pricing, circulation and transaction, and income distribution, and transform massive data resources of iron and steel enterprises into valuable and tradable data assets.
Third, we need to promote asset serviceability. The integration of data assets and business scenarios can unlock factor value. Explore the integration of steel industry data assets into the existing asset management system, and concretize as data services, enabling intelligent production and safety supervision. The construction of industrial big data centers, through the steel industry production, operation, supply chain coordination and other business scenarios, promote the deep integration of production, supply and marketing, efficient coordination, and promote the realization of process optimization, energy conservation and emission reduction and production safety. Guide the coordination and linkage of multi-level trading markets, build a market trading platform for the interconnection of national, regional and industry-level data trading venues, strengthen data integration and sharing, and promote the integration and development of industrial big data and industrial Internet.
Fourth, we will promote the industrialization of services. The industrialization of data service expands the development space of data factor market. In the future, there will be a large number of third-party data service industries specializing in industrial data analysis, registration of rights, transaction supervision and other businesses in the field of digitalization of the steel industry. It is necessary to support the cultivation of a number of industrial data providers and third-party professional service institutions that are close to the business needs of the steel industry, provide market-oriented professional services for the standardization and capitalization of data products, and improve the industrial chain of data element circulation and transaction. Construct the sequence of digital talents in the steel industry, improve the introduction, training and flow mechanism of digital talents, and create "digital workers in the steel industry.
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