The city of Changzhi in North China's Shanxi province recently received praise and incentives from the General Office of State Council for its outstanding results in the transformation of old industrial bases and traditional industries and the promotion of industrial upgrading. 

Since the city was approved as the first national demonstration zone for industrial transformation and upgrading in 2017, Changzhi has been commended by the State Council five consecutive times.

In recent years, Changzhi has boosted emerging industries and accelerated the formation of advanced industrial clusters focusing on the semiconductor optoelectronics, photovoltaics, advanced equipment manufacturing, medicine and health, and information technology application innovation industries.

Among them, the photovoltaic industry has created a whole industrial chain consisting of upstream raw material manufacturing, midstream photovoltaic product production, and downstream photovoltaic power generation application. Its industrial output value has exceeded 7 billion yuan ($1.05 billion), accounting for more than half of the province's photovoltaic output value.

The local semiconductor optoelectronics industry's output value has exceeded 5 billion yuan, and the production scale of LED packaging and display screens ranks among the top three in the country.

Based on the existing industrial foundation, Changzhi has also promoted the green, low-carbon and circular development of traditional industries, and showcased a resource-based city's path of industrial transformation and upgrading. 

Continuous breakthroughs in new technologies and processes have allowed the city to form a recycling industrial chain of efficient and clean coal utilization, such as coal coking, coal gasification, and kerosene.

In 2021, the city's comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste reached 73.9 percent, the proportion of advanced coal production capacity amounted to 78 percent, and the annual output of scrap steel processing was 6.45 million metric tons. Its energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP decreased 3.9 percent. 

Wang Ling'en, director of the Changzhi development and reform commission, said that Changzhi will continue to upgrade its traditional industries, expand emerging industries, deploy future industries, and focus on developing a national demonstration zone for undertaking industrial transfer.