At a recent provincial press conference outlining the strategic blueprint for the upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan period, the mayor of Lvliang, Shanxi Province, detailed the city's notable achievements over the past half-decade and presented a forward-looking vision centered on energy transition and digital transformation. The city's GDP has surged past the 200 billion RMB and 250 billion RMB thresholds, ranking it second in the province for the first time in its history, while its industrial output value leads Shanxi with 32 major industrial categories contributing to this strong economic base.

These impressive results have been driven by a steadfast commitment to economic restructuring and an increasingly diverse industrial portfolio. The mayor characterized resource-based economic transformation as a core mission for the new five-year phase. The strategy for industrial upgrading emphasizes high-end, intelligent, green, and integrated development, entailing simultaneous efforts to modernize existing industries and cultivate new, strategic growth sectors. This dual approach aims to develop new productive forces and construct a modern industrial system that leverages Lvliang's unique strengths.

A municipal official responsible for these initiatives underscored that digital empowerment will be a key focus in the coming years. By capitalizing on its strong industrial base and extensive application scenarios, the city plans to advance its digital transformation through dedicated policy support, high-quality project development, and the creation of innovative application environments. Efforts are underway to establish a digital economy hub in the Lvliang New City area, with negotiations already in progress with leading national technology firms to build influential data annotation centers, AI animation production bases, and training facilities for digital talent, further reinforcing a comprehensive digital industry ecosystem.

Regarding the balanced growth of coal and non-coal industries, the economic strategy centers on eight key sectors. This includes the four foundational pillars of coal-coke, steel, aluminum, and liquor, alongside four emerging industries: hydrogen, unconventional natural gas, helium, and gallium. This framework is summarized as four areas of enhancement and four areas of expansion.

The four enhancements involve upgrading the primary industries towards more sophisticated, intelligent, and sustainable models. For the coal and coke sector, the focus is on advanced coal science, moving towards high-value, material-based applications and extending the carbon-based new materials value chain to shift from low-end production to high-value products. The steel industry is transitioning from general to special and advanced grades, expanding depth in processing to create multi-functional materials. The aluminum sector will pursue both metallurgical and non-metallurgical paths, optimizing the complete industry chain from bauxite to high-precision products with the goal of establishing a 100-billion-RMB non-ferrous materials cluster. Meanwhile, the liquor industry is integrating with cultural tourism to create a comprehensive value chain, targeting revenues exceeding 100 billion RMB by the end of the plan period.

The four expansions are focused on the emerging sectors. For hydrogen, a three-dimensional strategy across hydrogen production, energy systems, and vehicle applications will build a complete industry chain encompassing manufacturing, storage, transportation, refueling, and research, alongside a complementary energy supply system and the development of hydrogen-powered heavy trucks. In unconventional natural gas, the city will align upstream exploration, pipeline storage, peak-shaving, and diversified consumption. Helium initiatives include advancing the second phase of key extraction projects and leveraging a national research laboratory to establish a major specialty gas production base. Finally, with gallium production capacity representing 57% of the province's total and nearly one-sixth of the national capacity, Lvliang has attracted a gallium oxide semiconductor materials project and is planning a complete fourth-generation semiconductor industry chain encompassing upstream materials, single-crystal substrates, and epitaxial devices.