Feicheng, a county-level city in Tai'an, Shandong province signed one university-government-enterprise cooperation project and 37 industrial chain projects with a planned total investment of 23.12 billion yuan ($3.35 billion) during an investment promotion activity on March 30.

The projects cover such industries as new energy, high-end chemicals, advanced manufacturing and green building materials.

This year, Feicheng is promoting the application scenarios of advantageous and leading sectors in subdivided fields such as lithium battery new materials, salt cavern energy storage, special steel, construction installation and high-end chemicals.

Fan Changzheng, mayor of Feicheng, said that by focusing on green, low-carbon and high-quality development, Feicheng will utilize 10 specific actions this year to advance new-type industrialization and cultivate pillar sectors based on its 27 major industrial chains and more than 100 subcategories. "Feicheng regards enterprises as the foundation for high-quality development," he added. 

Endowed with abundant salt cavern resources within 25 square kilometers of the city, Feicheng is building a salt cavern energy storage industrial park and accelerating the full-chain industrial cluster by integrating salt cavern energy storage, equipment manufacturing and supporting services.

"We will make every effort to ensure the smooth and orderly progress of the projects," said Sun Dong, secretary of the Party working Committee and director of the management committee of Feicheng Economic Development Zone. 

This year, the city is constructing 12 energy storage projects and creating a national demonstration zone for salt cavern compressed air energy storage in Shandong.  

Another pillar industry in Feicheng is lithium battery new materials, which is listed as a characteristic industrial cluster in the province. The city has attracted 15 lithium battery enterprises, and the production line of Shandong RuiFu Lithium Industry Co recently started trial operations and has an annual output of 30,000 metric tons of lithium salts. The project has solved the technical barriers, such as the low conversion rate of lithium ore extraction. 

Feicheng also views an industrial alliance as the key to promoting the cross-regional development of its building materials sector. The city has introduced more than 20 new types of building materials enterprises. Last year, the total output of the sector reached 89.32 billion yuan, an increase of 10.6 percent year-on-year.

A lithium valley in Feicheng, a county-level city in Tai'an, Shandong province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]