In the hinterland of Wumeng Mountain, deep in the canyon at an altitude of 2,000 meters, the roar of machines echoed in the mountains.
In the Magu Industrial Park in Hezhang County, Bijie, Guizhou, the production line is running at full speed. 5,000 tons of precision iron castings per month depart from here and travel 1,500 kilometers directly to the Shaanxi market.
In 2024, Shaanxi businessmen shut down their mature forklift counterweight production factory in Shaanxi, and took more than a dozen core technical backbones to go south to Hezhang to build the factory.
The mature “direct supply of molten iron” model in the park has allowed the company to reduce its production cost by 300 yuan per ton of products.
A southward migration of enterprises spanning thousands of miles, and a “chasing iron” layout close to the source of the industrial chain, are a vivid epitome of Hezhang anchoring the “rich ore development” strategy and promoting the development of county industries from low-end raw material exports to full industry chain clusters.
The Sorrow of Dilemma: It is difficult to get rich by sitting on the Jinshan Mountain, and extensive mining and metallurgy will leave you with scars
Hezhang, a small town hidden deep in the Wumeng Mountain, is endowed with unique mineral resources – it holds more than half of Guizhou Province’s iron ore reserves, as well as the province’s first proven super-large lead-zinc deposit.
However, for a long time, the resource advantages here did not translate into economic advantages.
Raw coal, iron ore and other primary raw materials are continuously transported out of the mountains, and the county only earns meager mining profits; in the early years, extensive local zinc smelting left a heavy ecological debt.
High-quality resources are “enriched” but the county is “not enriched”. This is a true portrayal of Hezhang’s past.
The turning point occurred in the late period of the “14th Five-Year Plan”.
Hezhang found the breakthrough point and officially started the road of industrial transformation and upgrading.
In 2024, the local government proposed to build a “rich ore and precise development” pilot area, focusing on the four key links of precise prospecting, precise ore distribution, precise development, and intensive processing, focusing on cultivating the three leading industries of coal and electricity building materials, short-process casting, and basic new materials, completely reversing the old path of extensive development.
The implementation of the strategy has yielded results, and the industrial economic growth rate leads the city.
In 2025, the growth rate of Hezhang’s industrial added value will reach 39.6%, ranking first in Bijie City; the total output value of enterprises in the iron industry will exceed 1.07 billion yuan; the raw coal output will be 3.4 million tons, and the iron ore mining and dressing output will be 1.7 million tons; the county’s new proven resource reserves of lead and zinc minerals will exceed 90 million tons, ranking first in Guizhou Province.
Breakthrough in the chain: nearby supporting equipment to reduce costs, extending the chain to replenish the chain and stabilizing employment
Standing in the production workshop of Chaoshun Casting, the relevant person in charge calculated a “cost account”: In the past, in Shaanxi, companies needed to purchase finished pig iron from Hebei over a long distance, and the freight for a single ton of raw materials exceeded 200 yuan.
After settling in Hezhang, the high-temperature molten iron produced by the upstream smelting enterprises is directly sent to the workshop through insulated tankers. The freight per ton is reduced to less than 20 yuan, and the secondary smelting process is omitted. Only the electricity bill and metal loss are saved, hundreds of thousands of yuan can be saved every month.
The upstream supporting enterprise he mentioned was Hezhang Xinqian Casting, a 5-minute drive away.
This company has integrated the raw material resources of many mines in the county and concentrated on blast furnace smelting. It will achieve an output value of 250 million yuan in 2025.
In the Zhushi Industrial Park 20 kilometers away, Shuhan Metal Products Co., Ltd. has also completed technical transformation, and its two 208 cubic meter blast furnaces are operating at full capacity.
The two leading local smelting companies supply a total of 500,000 tons of molten iron annually, some of which are directly supplied to the nearby foundry in the park, and the other part is deeply processed into high-purity iron powder.
From selling raw ore to supplying molten iron and producing terminal castings, the radius of the supply chain has been greatly reduced, completely rewriting the ecology of the Hezhang mineral industry.
At present, the county has gathered more than a dozen foundry companies above designated size. Their products include forklift counterweights, hardware locks, gas stove heads, etc., which are exported to the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta.
Technological transformation leap: extending to the high value-added track, adding value to raw materials and improving efficiency
Pure iron-making is still at the middle and low end of the industrial chain.
Hezhang did not stop there, but aimed at the upstream new materials track of new energy and promoted iterative upgrading of the industry.
Shuhan Metal Products Co., Ltd. is one of the “protagonists” of this upgrade. Since 2025, the company has invested 220 million yuan in building a high-end iron powder deep processing project and plans to produce 300,000 tons of high-purity iron powder annually.
The first-phase project focuses on high-purity iron powder with a purity of more than 93%, and is planned to be put into trial production in July 2026. The output is expected to be 40,000 tons and the output value is 120 million yuan during the year. The second-phase project focuses on ultra-high-purity iron powder with a purity of more than 98%, and is planned to be put into production in March 2027. The product can be directly used as the core basic raw material of the new energy industry.
“For the same ton of iron ore, the market price of primary pig iron is about 3,000 yuan. After deep processing into ultra-high purity iron powder, the price exceeds 8,000 yuan.” According to the relevant person in charge of the company, the project is simultaneously promoting green and low-carbon transformation, including bag dust removal in the sintering workshop, oxygen enrichment and carbon reduction in the blast furnace, etc.
Environmental protection projects have been fully implemented, exhaust gas emissions have reached standards, and energy consumption and costs have been reduced. At the same time, a full-process solid waste recycling system has been established. All blast furnace water slag, dust removal ash, etc. are recycled and supplied to local cement production companies, achieving “zero outflow” of industrial waste.
Intelligent transformation and renewal: Intelligent upgrade of the lead and zinc industry to make up for the shortcomings of the entire chain
Major industrial projects are the core support for the expansion and quality improvement of county industry.
In May 2026, the semi-autogenous mill and ball mill of the first phase flotation plant of Hezhang Dingshengxin Mining completed the no-load trial operation. The DCS digital intelligent control system optimized the production parameters in real time. The staff could fully control the mineral processing process while sitting in front of the central control screen, marking a milestone in the integrated mining and dressing project of the Zhugongtang super-large lead-zinc mine.
The Zhugongtang lead-zinc mine is a super-large high-quality metal deposit discovered in Guizhou Province in recent years. Its lead-zinc metal resources amount to 5.178 million tons, ranking among the top ten in the country. It is also associated with rare precious metals such as germanium and silver, and its comprehensive development value is outstanding.
After the project reaches full production capacity, it is expected to produce 210,000 tons of zinc concentrate and 70,000 tons of lead concentrate annually, with annual operating income exceeding 3.5 billion yuan and stably providing more than a thousand jobs.
In view of the shortcomings of the lead and zinc industry, which has strong mining and selection capabilities and short deep processing chains, Hezhang has successively introduced the technology, capital and operational experience of leading enterprises in the industry. In June 2026, the zinc-germanium new material green intelligent manufacturing project with a total investment of 5.5 billion yuan was officially launched, filling the industrial gap in the intelligent manufacturing field of zinc-germanium new materials in Guizhou Province, and will completely extend the entire lead-zinc-germanium industry chain and help Hezhang build a new materials industry cluster.
Global layout + green escort to build a new ecology for sustainable development
Hezhang’s industrial transformation is not a single breakthrough in a single project, but a systematic reconstruction of the entire industrial system.
In 2025, Hezhang proposed to build a “2+1+N” new industrial development system: focusing on building two core industrial clusters of intensive processing of basic materials and new comprehensive energy, cultivating characteristic food processing and supporting industries, while promoting the orderly development of associated resources such as fluorite ore, silica sand ore, and ceramic soil.
On the new energy track, Hezhang is fully promoting the construction of Weihe Power Plant, accelerating the intelligent and green upgrading of coal mines, scientifically deploying wind power and photovoltaics, building a “wind, solar, water and thermal storage” multi-energy complementary system, building a million-kilowatt new energy base, and striving to achieve a total output value of the energy industry exceeding 5 billion yuan.
To promote the precise development of rich ores, industrial upgrading is the core and green development is the bottom line.
Hezhang strictly adheres to the two bottom lines of development and ecology, comprehensively investigates and rectifies the historical solid waste pollution problems left over from the mining area, promotes the comprehensive treatment project of indigenous lead and zinc waste residues with high standards, and strictly implements the requirements of “developing one area, treating one area, and restoring one area”.
Relying on the “one map and three lists” working mechanism, Hezhang comprehensively understood the mineral wealth, accurately drew the industrial chain map, and planned more than 30 supporting projects around the two core industries of iron ore and lead and zinc, complementing the shortcomings of deep processing, and achieving remarkable results in chain-based and precise investment promotion.
From the sale of low-end raw materials to the self-production of high-end products, from single-point decentralized mining to full-chain cluster development, from carrying ecological historical debts to the implementation of green mines in the entire territory, Hezhang uses “rich ore development” as the fulcrum to promote all-round systemic changes in county industry.
In 2025, the Hezhang region’s GDP growth rate is 6.2%, ranking second in Bijie City; the industrial added value growth rate above designated size is 39.6%, ranking first in the city.
Facing the “15th Five-Year Plan”, Hezhang is anchoring on the goal of building a “rich ore-rich and refined development” pilot area, improving the entire chain of “mining – mineral processing – smelting – scattered metal extraction – new material manufacturing”, building a tens of billions-level basic material deep processing industry cluster, striving to exceed 15 billion yuan in total output value of the industrial chain, and handing over a replicable and promoteable Hezhang answer sheet for the high-quality development of resource-based county industries in western China.
