The Changzhi Iron and Steel (Group) Co Ltd was established in 1947 as China’s first ironworks in the Taihang revolutionary base near Beijing.

Over the past 55 years, it has grown to be a large State-owned enterprise that integrates many things, from mining, coking, iron and steel making, rolled metal, and cement production, to construction and real estate development.

It has three billion yuan in fixed assets and an annual output of 2.6 million tons iron and steel. It has a series of eight products: bar, wire rod, hot rolled ribbed bar, seamless steel tubes, slag cement, environmentally friendly wall products, as well as bolts and pipe.

In recent years, the company has become more market-oriented and has adjusted its industrial, product, technology, energy, and economic strategies and has improved its modern product awareness and experimentation. It has also worked hard to develop new products and continue to enrich its product mix and improve product quality. In 2002, it passed a China metallurgical industry quality system authentication center test and got its ISO9001: 2000 quality system certification.

The company sticks to its integrity and the principle of putting the customer first and always tries to keep its customers satisfied. It has been given a “AAA” rating and an “Observes contracts and keeps promises” designation. In 2000, it was designated an “outstanding enterprise” by the provincial government and a national May Day Work award by the All China Federation of Trade Unions.

The company is famous in Shanxi province for its pure steel for architectural use and, in 1999, its lead product -- Shangdang brand hot rolled ribbed bars for reinforced concrete -- got national metallurgical product quality authentication. That same year, it won the national Gold Cup for metallurgical products. In 2001, it was recognized as a Shanxi landmark and brand name and, in 2002, it was given the national product exempt from inspection title.

After China entered the WTO, the company set a strategic objective of modernizing itself, in view of the fierce competition. It has sped up its industrial structural changes and product mix adjustment and has begun implementing a development strategy that emphasizes iron and steel, architecture, and machine manufacturing.

It now has a number of technological reform projects that involve a recuperative heating stamping coke oven with an annual output of 600,000 tons; a one-million-ton slag superfine powder cement production line; a cement clinker production line with a daily output of 1,000 tons; a new type environmentally friendly wall product production line, with an annual output of one million square meters; a 200-square-meter sintering machine; a 1,080-cubic-meter blast furnace; a 65-ton converter; and a 20,000-cubic-meter oxygenator. It also has a coordinated, closed-cycle economic model that covers architectural steel, cement, environmentally friendly wall product manufacturing, building design, construction, and real estate development.

In the past five decades of development, the company has followed the ideas of the late premier, Zhou Enlai, self-dependence, hard work, and plain living, in a corporate culture. In this new historic period of development, it has established a principle of enterprise development using modern science and technology, scientific achievement, and modern management and operation concepts, while integrating modern thinking with traditions for a new company image.