During this year's National Two Sessions, Hu Wangming, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of China Baowu Steel Group, put forward several proposals. These address the current state, challenges, pain points, and future high-quality development needs of the steel industry and China Baowu.
Hu Wangming's latest recommendations primarily focus on the transformation and development of manufacturing employees in the artificial intelligence era, overseas ESG development, and the green, low-carbon transition of the steel industry. These areas are considered crucial for the steel sector to achieve high-quality development.
Intelligentization and Greening: Reshaping the Steel Industry "Currently, AI is profoundly reshaping the competitive paradigm and value creation logic of the global manufacturing industry. Driven by policy guidance and corporate efforts, the intelligent transformation of manufacturing is accelerating. While unlocking efficiency potential, it also brings deep-seated changes to the labor and employment landscape," Hu Wangming stated.
As the world's largest steelmaker and a representative central Chinese steel enterprise, China Baowu initiated its "2526" project in 2025 to comprehensively advance the deep integration of AI and steel manufacturing. At the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Baowu's self-developed "Baoliandeng Large Model for the Steel Industry" won the top award, the SAIL Award.
Hu Wangming emphasized that another key area of exploration for China Baowu is AI-enabled employee models. The company has formulated a plan to enhance the innate AI literacy of all staff, piloted the construction of a digital-intelligent engineer competency certification system, and is building a self-controlled platform for the widespread application of AI by employees. This aims to effectively empower staff in job innovation and value creation.
However, challenges such as skills transformation difficulties, gaps in algorithm management impacting labor rights, and the need to stimulate innovative vitality across the workforce remain. To address these, Hu Wangming proposed establishing a robust digital-intelligent skills development system to secure employment safety; accelerating innovation in labor employment systems to protect workers' rights; and building a comprehensive innovation ecosystem to drive a paradigm shift in innovation through AI.
Alongside AI-driven industry restructuring, greening is another vital direction for the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing. Hu Wangming believes that greening is also an objective requirement for developing new quality productive forces and building a modern industrial system.
Addressing issues related to the green transformation of manufacturing, Hu Wangming cited examples from China Baowu: strengthening R&D and application of cutting-edge low-carbon metallurgical technologies; building the world's first industrial-scale HyCROF hydrogen-rich carbon recycling oxygen blast furnace pilot platform; officially commissioning a million-tonne hydrogen-based shaft furnace project, achieving dual breakthroughs in technological innovation and carbon reduction; cooperating with the China Iron and Steel Association to build and operate an Environmental Product Declaration platform for the entire steel industry chain—China's first such platform in the industrial sector and one of the most timely and data-rich in the global steel industry; advancing the production and service of low-carbon steel products, establishing the world's first production line fully dedicated to non-grain oriented silicon steel for the new energy vehicle industry, mass-producing China's first low-carbon emission automotive steel product, and collaborating with CISA to formulate the "Assessment Method for Low Carbon Emission Steel."
Based on bottlenecks in the steel industry's green transition, Hu Wangming recommended establishing a national technological innovation center for carbon neutrality in the steel industry to boost R&D in low-carbon metallurgy and enhance basic and frontier technological innovation capabilities; accelerating the construction of a unified standard system for low-carbon emission steel and elevating the industry-wide EPD platform to a national public service platform; and strengthening market incentives and guidance to promote low-carbon products and green consumption.
Resource Security and Chinese Companies 'Going Global' Furthermore, when discussing the steel industry's role as the "fundamental base" of the national industrial system, Hu Wangming pointed out that both resource security and the current low-carbon transition urgently require high-quality iron ore resources.
China Baowu has taken key steps in deploying overseas resources. The Simandou project in West Africa, a giant iron ore project with deep participation from Baowu and other Chinese companies, has officially integrated its iron ore into the global trade system. The first shipment of nearly 200,000 tonnes of iron ore arrived at a Chinese port on January 17 this year. Baowu's subsidiary, Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., has already begun using this high-quality new raw material at its Baoshan base.
Hu Wangming noted that since taking a leading role in the development of the Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea in June 2024, and achieving the full completion of the mine, railway, and port ahead of schedule, the Simandou project is set to reshape the global iron ore supply landscape and enhance the security of China's steel industry chain. Concurrently, China Baowu will深入研究 the high-value utilization of high-grade iron ore resources and explore the layout of green furnace feed.
Hu Wangming suggested strengthening national-level coordination to support strategic overseas resource布局; clarifying industrial development direction by incorporating it into the key cultivation of strategic emerging industries; and building win-win cooperation mechanisms to promote coordinated efforts by central enterprises in going global. This would continuously enhance national resource security capabilities and support the steel industry's low-carbon transition.
In addition to emphasizing "going global" in resource布局, Hu Wangming also focused on building the soft power of Chinese enterprises abroad, particularly highlighting the importance of constructing an ESG standard system with Chinese characteristics.
Hu Wangming stated that Chinese companies actively participate in project construction in countries along the "Belt and Road" initiative, proactively align with international norms, and diligently fulfill their Environmental, Social, and Governance responsibilities, demonstrating the commitment of enterprises from a responsible major country. However, Chinese companies still face common challenges when deeply practicing ESG overseas, which act as bottlenecks constraining the improvement of overseas green governance capabilities.
"Building a 'Belt and Road' ESG standard system with Chinese characteristics is an important measure for China to promote high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative and actively participate in global environmental governance."
Hu Wangming expressed hope for supporting the construction of this distinctive ESG standard system, leading the development of biodiversity governance standards for the Belt and Road, establishing quantitative evaluation and compensation standards for "incremental development contributions" to overseas communities, and creating a self-controlled cross-border carbon emission reduction mutual recognition mechanism for the Belt and Road. These efforts would continuously improve the overseas responsibility performance of Chinese enterprises.
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