What are mining leaders thinking about?

Does Global Mining economy begin to recover? Has the spring of China’s Mining industry come? What’s the prospect of the Mining industry’s future of China? On Sept.23rd, September, many top mining companies attended CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2017 to discuss their problems, the opportunities and challenges facing global mining and the development strategies.

Global Mining is recovering

“The fundamentals of mining’s supply and demand is recovering,   Wang Jionghui, Assistant President of China Minmetals Corporation, General Manager of Minmetals Exploration & Development Co., Ltd said. He believed that the radical reason for the price fluctuation of metallic mineral products is the supply and demand relations of mining products. Despite of the slowdown of China’s economic growth, it is still in the period of rapid development and the engine and driving force of world economic development.

Wang Dongsheng, General Manager, Chinalco Mineral Resources Corporation said the main factors affecting the development of global mining are the relations between supply and demand and mining policies. China is not only the biggest aluminium producer but also the main user of global mining products. China’s economic policies and mining policies will exert a great influence on global mining. China’s huge demand for metallic mineral products will accelerate the recovery of global mining.

Leaders of mining companies are taking a group photo

Technological innovation shaping the development model and competition landscape of mining

“Big data in mining field and its smart application will gradually become the world-class core capital of mining companies, which will be applied in the resource prospection, resource evaluation, optimization design and production operation to improve the development and operation efficiency of mining resources. On this basis, data and smart technologies will be integrated into the management of life cycle of the mining industry. Automation, smart management and remote control will be adopted in mine exploitation to reduce the safety risk and rigid cost and improve the capacity. Currently, the advanced mining companies in the world have began to control the mine remotely and operated unmanned”, said Wang Jionghui.

Li Shousheng, Board Director & Deputy Secretary-General of CPC Committee and General Manager, Shandong Zhaojin Group Co., Ltd. said: “China’s gold mining need to break technological barriers and the traditional gold mining needs to be upgraded. Driven by the integration of mechanization, automation, information and intelligence and the deep coordination of technological research and innovation, we should establish the science-technological ecological circle and improve the technology of China’s gold mining.”

Ms. Li Tong, CEO of BOC International Holdings Limited(BOCI) said :“We should increase the technological spending to innovate the Mining and Ore Dressing and the production method and participate in the new round of technological reform and the industrial production process.”. She also suggested seeking the demand of strategic emerging industires such as high-end manufacturing products and smart equipment, aeronautics and astronautics, new materials. One the other hand, we will make the mining industry participate in the technological innovation of strategic emerging industries and build the full value chain China’s manufacturing as the competitive advantage, especially the leading companies, which should pay much attention to the technological innovation and particiapte in the technological innovation and industrialization to consolidate their leading position.

Insist on green mine and ecological development

“Beautiful scenery is the gold and silver mines”, Li Guohong, General Manager of Shandong Gold Group Co., Ltd & Chairman of Shandong Gold Mining Co., Ltd. has always adhered to their principle that they will ensure the residents around the mining areas and the sourrounding areas can breathe clean air, drink clean water and the unification of economic benefits and social benefits can be achieved.

But there is also a price for green development. Wang Jionghui pointed out: “As one of the five development concepts, green development has been lifted to the national strategy. China is now starting to eliminate the mining rights of natural reserves and the requirements for environmental protection have changed from 'appeals' to mandatory demand for resource exploration, development and utilization. This will increase the rigid cost of mining exploitation and narrow the prospected space, bring more challenges for producion expansion and increase.

BOC International Holdings Ltd put forward their coping strategies: “We will accelerate the reform of production mode and increase their spending on environmental protection and upgrade the mining equipment and reduce the energy consumption and the pollutant emissions, participate in the innovation and application of energy conservation  and emission reduction technologies and seek the demand of green industry chain for mining products and support the rapid development of environmental protection industry.”

Open and share, Insist on the path of international cooperation

Nowadays, cooperation and development, mutual benefit and win-win strategy is a big trend. Internationalizaiton and marketization are the necessary path to the strong development of China’s mining industry.

In terms of international coooperation and communication, Li Shousheng said: “Zhaojin devoted to the strategy of “going to the outside world”. In terms of implementation strategy, Zhaojin international mining company, based on the concept of “value, creation and sharing”, choose excellent mining companies and fund firms to make investment, management and develop to achieve win-win cooperation. Central enterprises, state-owned companies and private companies will enjoy equal opprtunities, transparent policies and fair treatments when going to the outside world. But at the same time, they will also face big risks for it is easy to meet failure and mistakes in making investment for the lack of international investment development concept, experiences, talents, management and mechanisms.

Chen Jinghe, Chairman of Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd thought China’s mining companies must pay attention to two keys in going global. Firstly, it’s very important to seize the investment opportunities. It’s easy to make big mistakes when merging and acquiring in the height of mining bubbles. In market depression, mining capitals are easy to be devalued, so it is more safe to merge and acquire in countercyclical period.However, companies require unusual courage and vision to merge and acquire during the special period. Secondly, we must be familiar with the international standards and conventions and implement the local laws and customs and use our advantages, strengthen our confidence and be brave enough to make innovations.

“Mining is an industry suitable for Chinese people to engage in. Chinese companies are fully able to create great achievements in the mining industry.”. In the opinion of Chen Jinghe, mining is a tough industry that requires innovative spirit and Chinese people are hard working and have innovative and adventurous spirit.

Wang Dongsheng called on China’s mining to unite and learn and make innovations in cooperation path with mining companies; International mining companies should cooperate with China based on multi-win and common development.

Creating Mining Investment and Finance Platform

Shandong Zhaojin has its own idea in terms of financing investment. Li Shousheng pointed out “Integration means the integration of gold industry, capital market, finance and Internet. Through ‘three integrations’, we will expand the gold industry and face the new challenges faced with capital gold, finance gold and Internet gold”. He introduced that Zhaojin insisted on integrating Zhaojin with the capital market and finance to promote the equity financing, employee stock ownership plan and private placement, opening the diversified and low-cost financing channels; We will also embrace the Internet to launch two gold investment platforms “Gold Rush Park” and “Gold Ran The Family” and create the “Internet+gold+finance” ecosystem integrating “online” and “offline”, investment and financing, gold investment, customization and social networking.

Wang Jionghui said Minmetals plans to create the world-level trade platform for mining resources. Relying on the advantages of traditional trade, Minmetals will try to obtain resource supply channels in more ways to know more information about the copper, alluminium, zin and iron and to improve the security of scarce and strategic mining resources to strengthen coordination. Currently, Minmetals is accelerating the layout of the global marketing network, using the polymerization effect and constructing the mixed mineral base to create the new type of world-level trade platform.

“China’s mining companies should open more quickly and optimize the allocation of resources in the international market and adjust the capital structure, optimize and restructure raw materials, technology and talents to promote the innovation of production modes and improve the returns on capital and improve the international competitiveness of the mining industry”. Ms. Li Tong also added that China’s mining companies can build a strategic platform which can optimize the allocation of resources and achieve coordinated development. One one hand, coordinated development will be achieved among mines exploitation, products processing, industry chain extension, the added value extension, the construction of related infrastructure, the protection of resources and environment, forming the industry chain. On the other hand, we wil build a unified regional coordination organization, coordinating the mining production, trade, investment policies, build a modern transnational governance mechanism, trade investment rules and arbitration system of punishment, promoting the free flow of mining factors and improve the efficiency of resource allocation, protect the mining industry and the overall economic interests, form the international mining market and participate in the pricing of international mining industry and the trade rules.   

Strategies and Approaches of China Mining Industry

Faced with the upcoming spring of global mining and the huge challenges of China’s minng industry, where should the China’s mining industry go? Do we need to adjust our development strategies and directions? How to improve the success rate of the international development and marketization?

The challenges and opportunities are coexsiting. Looking forward to the future, Li Tong is very confident that the global economy can enjoy sustained recovery and China’s economy can achieve stable and rapid development. But she also pointed out the global mining companies, especially China’s leading mining companies need to speed up their business restructuring to improve their competitiveness faced with new business environment and important development opportunities. She also suggested we should adopt the development strategies of reform and transformation, green development, technological innovation and internationalization and better use the operation of capital market home and abroad to achieve great-leap-forward development. In terms of reform and transformation, we need to speed up the capacity adjustment and the upgrading of production lines to optimize the product mix. In terms of green development, we want to speed up the reform of mining production modes and increase the spending on environment protection to reduce the energy consumption and pollutant emissions. In terms of technological innovation, we will increase the spending in scientific research to participate in the new round of technological reform and industrialization process, establishing the full industry chain which will become a competitive advantage.

About CHINA MINING

Since first held in 1999, the scope and influence of CHINA MINING has grown rapidly year by year. As a global mining summit forum and exhibition, CHINA MINING Congress and Expo has become one of the world’s top mining events, and one of the world’s largest mining exploration, development and trading platforms, covering all aspects of the whole mining industry chain, including geological survey, exploration and development, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, mining techniques and equipment, mining services, etc. playing an active promotion role in creating exchange opportunities and enhancing mutual cooperation between domestic and foreign mining enterprises.