China's hardware and die-casting industry embarks on a path of low-carbon economic development

　Currently, the hardware mold industry possesses strong competitiveness. Its greatest advantages and strengths lie in both private enterprises and traditional industries. Entering the high-end market requires advanced technologies. Recently, a collaboration between a senior technical school and Zhejiang University's Modern Manufacturing Engineering Institute has been established to build a rapid digital design and precision detection center for molds, serving the local mold industry.

　　With the development of China's hardware mold industry, competition from various provinces has intensified, leading to disorderly competition, low-cost hardware, low-grade product structures, and insufficient technological content. The hardware mold industry began to emerge in Nanhai in the 1960s and reached its peak in the late 1980s. At that time, the industry had a low entry barrier and required minimal technology; 30,000 yuan could set up a family-workshop-style hardware mold processing factory. After more than 40 years of development, there are now over 10,000 hardware and mold processing enterprises, the vast majority of which are labor-intensive small enterprises.

　　Luo Baihui, secretary-general of the International Mold Association, stated that domestic private mold enterprises generally possess advanced equipment and technology applications. New technologies can be widely and rapidly applied within the industry, forming an industrial chain from design and manufacturing to related material production and heat treatment, highlighting integrated advantages. However, Luo Baihui pointed out that due to insufficient funds and a lack of self-owned brands, hardware mold enterprises will increase investment in management and technological transformation, expand the proportion of mid-to-high-end products, and establish domestic sales departments to actively expand the domestic market.

　　Luo Baihui emphasized the need to promote pilot programs for a circular economy in the hardware mold industry, adhering to the principles of reduction, reuse, and resource utilization. The focus should be on reducing resource consumption and waste emissions, actively implementing national resource comprehensive utilization preferential policies, and promoting the reuse of waste batteries, waste home appliances, and old furniture, as well as the resource utilization of bamboo and wood processing residues, mining waste, sewage treatment plant sludge, and stainless steel processing waste. Vigorously developing industrial circular economy to promote clean production is a crucial aspect of a low-carbon economy.

　　Luo Baihui pointed out that the mold industry will transition from a past development model primarily reliant on scale expansion and quantity increase to a lean development model focused on technological progress and improved product quality and level; from a development model mainly relying on the introduction, digestion, and absorption of international advanced technologies to a model that balances introduction, digestion, and absorption with enhanced independent innovation capabilities; and from an industry characterized primarily by skilled labor to one characterized by technology and modern enterprise management. It is essential to vigorously promote an innovation-driven development approach, actively cultivate and develop new growth points, and vigorously develop the modern manufacturing service industry. It is also important to steadily extend the upstream and downstream industrial chains centered on mold manufacturing, support the construction of mold industry clusters, pay attention to reasonable layouts that coordinate with the mold manufacturing industry, and gradually form an industrial pattern of mutual complementarity and coordinated development.