Non-ferrous metal industry, a highlight of Inner Mongolia

By Liu Yufen (chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2014-12-02

The Inner Mongolia autonomous region's development strategy, known as "8337", plans to build the autonomous region into a national base for non-ferrous metal manufacturing and processing. The region's non-ferrous metal manufacturing and processing industry has seen substantial development, based on its advantageous non-ferrous resources and advanced technologies.

China's only rare earth aluminum production base

Jitai Aluminum Co in Inner Mongolia is the only rare earth aluminum production base in China. The enterprise is equipped with a domestically advanced assembly line for aluminum profiles and casting products manufacturing, as well as color spraying equipment imported from Europe and the US.

Jitai has a production capacity of rare earth aluminum products of 50,000 tons per year and another 50,000 tons of casting products, including aluminum alloy sticks, ingots and aluminum busbar.

Moreover, the enterprise has set up a branch that specializes in rare earth aluminum products.

Inexhaustible urban mineral resources

"A city in its industrialization and urbanization process will transform itself into a mine of urban minerals," said by Zhang Yong, deputy head of Baotou Aluminum Industry Park’s administration committee.

The so-called "urban minerals" describes recyclable resources, including steel, non-ferrous metals and plastics, that are produced in the process of industrialization and urbanization and contained in waste materials like electromechanical equipment, cables, telecommunication devices and automobiles. Such minerals are utilized at a similar rate to raw mineral resources.

Baotou's industry features two characteristics, large demand of resources with large solid waste emission. The city's main industries, such as steel, equipment manufacturing and aluminum, all consume huge amounts of resources and energy and produce significant solid waste. Therefore, it is a reasonable solution to build the urban mineral base, which not only can transform waste into recyclable resources but also cut waste emission in an environmentally-friendly way.