Hebei Province recently issued the 'Hebei Province Industrial Enterprise Technological Transformation and Upgrade Plan', strengthening base support, leading enterprise driven development, brand leadership, and cluster development, adhering to benchmarking first and technological transformation follow-up, based on 'creating new from existing', vigorously implementing the technological transformation and upgrade plan, developing a batch of new processes, new technologies, and new products, deriving a batch of new industries, improving a batch of new models, extending and perfecting the industrial chain, eliminating outdated processes and technologies, highlighting the enhancement of innovation capabilities and the industrialization of innovation achievements, highlighting energy conservation, consumption reduction, emission reduction, and pollution control, highlighting the integrated application of information technology, highlighting the transformation and upgrade of advantageous leading enterprises, highlighting industrial cluster development, enhancing core industrial competitiveness, and accelerating industrial transformation and upgrading.

The 'Plan' clearly states that by 2017, technological transformation investment will grow by about 15% annually, and the proportion of industrial technological transformation investment in industrial investment will increase to more than 60%; the proportion of industrial taxes in all fiscal revenue will increase by more than 2 percentage points, the input-output ratio of a thousand technological transformation projects will reach more than 1:2.5, the contribution rate of technological transformation investment to industrial economic growth will reach more than 50%; the technical equipment of key enterprises will reach more than 75% at the domestic advanced level. Among them, more than 35% will reach the international advanced level, and more than 60% of products will reach the domestic advanced level; the proportion of research and experimental development (R&D) internal expenditure of industrial enterprises above designated size in main business income will increase by more than 0.7%, the new product output value rate of industrial enterprises above designated size will increase to more than 8%, and a batch of enterprise technology research and development centers and key laboratories will be transformed and upgraded.

The 'Plan' emphasizes that the key task of technological transformation is to increase efforts to transform and upgrade eight traditional industries such as steel with new technologies, new processes, new equipment, and new materials, promote enterprise equipment upgrading, product upgrading, improve enterprise resource and energy utilization levels, and strive to achieve breakthroughs in common technologies and weak links that affect the overall industrial situation of Hebei Province and restrict industry development.