Problems in the chemical new materials industry

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At present, the overall development level of new chemical materials in our country still lags behind that of developed countries such as Europe, the United States, and Japan. Firstly, there is a lack of strategic planning, and the industrial structure is unreasonable. The development of the domestic chemical new materials industry lacks comprehensive planning; various regions fail to establish a rational positioning and pursue differentiated specialization based on their own conditions and advantages. There is an issue of low-level repetitive construction, and enterprise sizes are generally small. Some enterprises are concentrated in the mid- and lower-stream stages, resulting in weak industrial supporting capabilities. Furthermore, reckless investment driven by herd mentality has not been effectively curbed, and the structural imbalance of \"excess in the low-end and shortage in the high-end\" has become prominent, affecting the sustainability of industrial development. Second, there is insufficient investment in research and development, a lack of innovation capabilities, and serious problems with core technologies being bottlenecked. Our country lacks an effective mechanism for resource allocation and sustained investment, which prevents it from supporting independent innovation at the technological level. At the same time, as the main agents of innovation, enterprises tend to focus on imitation, which results in their reliance on others for key technologies and core components. Our country is highly dependent on foreign countries in terms of high-end chemical new materials, as well as advanced chemical equipment and cutting-edge technologies. According to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, among the more than 130 key basic chemical materials required by large enterprises in China, 32% of these materials are not yet available domestically, while 54% still depend on imports. These include high-end electronic chemicals, high-performance functional materials, and advanced polyolefins, and they fail to meet the needs of the economy and people’s livelihoods. The development of high-end technology research and development has become a key factor restricting the growth of new chemical materials in our country. Third, there is a disconnect from downstream material application industries, a lack of collaborative innovation capabilities, and insufficient transformation of research results. Our country lacks close ties with downstream application industries; material development is usually aimed at filling gaps and replacing imports, which results in our production of advanced new materials remaining behind that of foreign countries. At the same time, there is a lack of effective mechanisms and platforms for collaborative innovation in China; industrial technical foundations such as material standards, grades, testing and evaluation methods, and databases have not yet been established, which makes it difficult to share information on scientific and technological achievements and results in a low rate of conversion of research findings into practical applications. Fourth, there is a shortage of high-level talent, and discipline development as well as talent accumulation are extremely weak, which has become a key constraint on development. China’s new materials industry started late, has a weak foundation, and insufficient investment in talent development; in particular, the training period for leading talents is relatively long, which results in a relative shortage of talent supply for the development of this industry in China. Taking materials for integrated circuits as an example, it takes at least 8–10 years for professionals with a master’s degree or higher, who graduate from top domestic universities, to progress from workshop engineers to supervisors. At present, the core talent teams of most integrated circuit material companies in our country come from China**, Japan, South Korea, and other countries.