Our province has introduced the country's first evaluation plan for lithium battery industry projects, striving to build a world-class lithium battery industry base by 2027.

Recently, 9 departments including the Sichuan Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for Conducting Lithium Battery Industry Project Evaluation to Promote High-Quality Development (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Plan"). This "Implementation Plan" is the first special policy plan in China for the evaluation of lithium battery industry projects. It aims to effectively address the risks of structural and cyclical overcapacity in the lithium battery industry, coordinate development and safety, initiate the evaluation of lithium battery industry projects, optimize the regional industrial layout, enhance the industrial level, actively serve the security of the national new energy and new material industry chain and supply chain, promote the realization of the "energy freedom" of the major country, and create an industrial business card of "Made in Sichuan" to support "Made in China".

Focus on Five Key Points to Consolidate and Enhance the Leading Edge of Sichuan's Lithium Battery Industry

The formulation and promulgation of the "Implementation Plan" have explored a new development path for the high-quality development of the national lithium battery industry, provided a strong project support and guarantee for cultivating new productive forces, and are of great significance for consolidating and enhancing the leading edge of Sichuan's lithium battery industry at home and abroad and building a world-class lithium battery industry base. The "Implementation Plan" mainly includes main objectives, evaluation organization, evaluation methods, result application and other main contents.

• Scientifically Proposing the Evaluation Objectives of Lithium Battery Projects and Focusing on Building a New Industrial Pattern: The "Implementation Plan" comprehensively constructs a high-quality development project evaluation system for the lithium battery industry with scientific evaluation methods, a complete index system, comprehensive result application and prominent guiding role, optimizes and improves the allocation mechanism of resource elements such as land, finance, energy and talents, guides all regions to improve the quality of project construction, clarifies the investment threshold for new projects, promotes the technological transformation and upgrading of completed projects, avoids low-level homogeneous competition, and promotes the continuous improvement of the development quality and comprehensive strength of the lithium battery industry in the province, and forms a new industrial pattern with better quality and efficiency, stronger technological innovation, higher green safety and better factor allocation.
• Standardizing the Organization and Implementation of Project Evaluation and Forming a Government-Enterprise Linkage Development Mechanism: Focusing on the full life cycle industrial chain of "lithium resource development - lithium battery materials - battery manufacturing - system integration - terminal application - cascade development and comprehensive recycling of used batteries", the project evaluation is organized and implemented according to the project construction sequence, and the pre-evaluation of proposed projects and the annual evaluation of stock projects are carried out, and the project evaluation results are promptly fed back to the project units and the local economic and information departments.
• Effectively Constructing a Frontier Evaluation System and Building a Graded and Classified High-Quality Project Library: The "Implementation Plan" establishes an evaluation index system combining "one-vote veto + main indicators + advantage indicators" according to the multi-index comprehensive evaluation method, which is divided into pre-evaluation and substantive evaluation. The main indicators include project investment level, economic benefit, technological innovation ability, green and intelligent production level, leading and driving role, etc. The advantage indicators include multi-dimensional project contents such as comprehensive competitiveness and major contribution ability, guiding and encouraging enterprises to continuously improve their comprehensive competitiveness.
• Innovatively Implementing the Differentiated Factor Policy and Activating the Source of Factor Guarantee: The "Implementation Plan" highlights positive incentives and strengthens the application of results. According to the principle of "high quality and efficiency, more factor supply", it couples and amplifies the guiding role of the government in allocating resource elements and the basic regulatory role of the market. It constructs an incentive and restraint mechanism for resource elements such as approval, energy consumption, water consumption, emission, finance and taxation that are linked to the project, and focuses on increasing the positive incentives for Class A projects and the reverse pressure on Class C projects.
• Clearly Establishing the Lithium Industry Development Coordination Mechanism and Accelerating the Building of a World-Class Lithium Battery Industry Base: In order to coordinate the high-quality development of the lithium battery industry and accelerate the building of a world-class lithium battery industry base, the "Implementation Plan" clearly establishes a lithium industry development coordination mechanism with the main responsible comrades of the Department of Economy and Information Technology as the convener and the provincial relevant departments as the member units. The project evaluation results are combined with the industrial optimization layout, the upgrading of industrial parks and the support of special financial funds to create a strong atmosphere conducive to the competition and development of projects and enterprises.

Striving to Reach by 2027 with the Output Value of the Whole Industry Chain Exceeding 800 Billion Yuan

"Recently, Sichuan Province has initially built a world-class lithium battery industry base by virtue of its rich lithium ore resources, perfect industrial supporting facilities and effective policy support." said Jiang Anqi, the chairman of Tianqi Lithium Industry Co., Ltd. The "Implementation Plan" has clearly defined the policy orientation of the high-quality development of the lithium battery industry by refining the project evaluation indicators, providing clear guidance for enterprises in technological innovation, green development and industrial upgrading. The requirements for the high-end, intelligent and green development of the lithium battery industry in our province coincide with the development concept of Tianqi Lithium Industry. Under the guidance of the "Implementation Plan", the technical level, industrial scale and market competitiveness of Sichuan's lithium battery industry will be further enhanced, and Tianqi Lithium Industry will also continue to make positive contributions to the high-quality development of the lithium battery industry as always.

Li Yusheng, the deputy secretary-general and the president of the Lithium Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, said that China's lithium industry has shown a strong growth momentum in the past few years, which has not only consolidated China's leading position in the global production and consumption of lithium battery materials, but also made important contributions to promoting energy transformation and green development. The promulgation of the "Implementation Plan" will further standardize the evaluation of lithium battery industry projects, enhance Sichuan's strategic position in China's lithium battery material industry, and help build a world-class lithium battery industry base. Relying on its resource and industrial advantages, Sichuan will give full play to its demonstration role, contribute to building a more secure, efficient and sustainable lithium battery industry ecosystem and promote the high-quality development of the global lithium battery industry.

Qing Jiasheng, the director of the Materials Industry Division of the Sichuan Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology, said that the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government have always attached great importance to the development of the lithium battery industry, continuously enhanced the gold content, new content and green content of the industry, and focused on building "the place of lithium resource control, the place of lithium industry cluster, the place of lithium material concentration and the place of lithium technology leadership" with global influence. Next, the Department of Economy and Information Technology will benchmark the international and domestic advanced levels, carry out the evaluation of lithium battery industry projects and enhance the core competitiveness of the lithium battery industry. Strive to build a full life cycle industrial cluster and ecological system of "lithium resource development - lithium battery materials - battery manufacturing - system integration - terminal application - cascade development and comprehensive recycling of used batteries" by 2027, with the output value of the whole industry chain exceeding 800 billion yuan, and build a world-class lithium battery industry base to realize "Sichuan Lithium Battery" for the whole country and sold globally.

*Reprinted from the Sichuan Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology.