Reported by Zhu Ze and Wang Guangmin

　　A "Wind Vane" for Domestic Vanadium Price

　　Green plants, clean workshops, sprucely dressed workers, neatly placed products, spotless laboratory equipment… Recently, the correspondents came to the Qingshan Ferrovanadium LLC., and truly felt the vigorous momentum and the mightiness of vanadium enterprises in Chongyang County.

　　Qingshan Ferrovanadium LLC., located in the northern district of Chongyang Economic Development Zone, is the largest private enterprise that produces FEV 50 in Hubei Province. Talking about the vanadium, Dai Xibin, executive of the company, proudly said, "In the domestic market of the vanadium industry, other than Pangang Group Company LTD. and Chengde Steel LTD., the third should be Chongyang Qingshan Fantie LLC."

　　Chongyang has started mining to extract vanadium since the 1970s, and is one of the earliest vanadium-extracting districts. Vanadium pentoxide with the brand name "Quanhu" has been awarded the ministerial and provincial fine-quality gold medal. In the late 1980s, given various reasons, Chongyang vanadium industry did not become a prosperous industry; nevertheless, it has trained a number of talents in professional management, technology and marketing for vanadium industry.

　　Talents of vanadium industryflew into factories nationwide batch after batch. Some investedand establishedtheenterprisesproducing vanadium pentoxide on their own, and became major local taxpayers; some were hired as well-paid technical backbones invanadium manufacturing enterprises in other places; some specialized in the sale of vanadium products, and established a marketing network all over the county

　　"So to speak, where there are vanadium resources around the county, there are Chongyang people." introduced Gan Jinghuang, director of Chongyang County Economic and Trade Bureau. According to incomplete statistics, technical personnel from Chongyang engaged in the production and processing of vanadium in other provinces have exceeded 5,000.

　　"The vanadium prices in Chongyang have become a "wind vane" for domestic vanadium price.Talking about the vanadium prices in Chongyang, the vanadium entrepreneurs unanimously hold the view that it can influence the situation of the same domestic industry. Enter "Chongyang vanadium industry" in "Baidu" website, then type search, and over a thousand pieces of information related to Chongyang vanadium industry immediately show up. When you log in the homepage of the vanadium industry, you can find that Chongyang vanadium price, paralleled with Panzhihua and Chengde, has become the domestic reference price.

　　"Gorgeous Switch" of the Vanadium Industry Operators

　　"Quite a number of the vanadium industry operators switch gorgeously from 'vanadium vendors' to 'vanadium bosses', and then to 'vanadium entrepreneurs'." said Cheng Qunlin, secretary of Chongyang County CPC Committee, during the conference of the whole county's economic work on Feb. 26th, which caused a strong resonance among the audience.

　　Cheng Qunlin told the reporters that the positioning of Chongyang vanadium industry is, to be guided by the scientific development concept, to uphold the banner of both "the green vanadium industry" and "the high tech vanadium industry", to shape the vanadium industry to meet the requirements of "the two-oriented society" (resource-economical & environment-friendly society) and to benefit the Chongyang County and the people.

　　"The gorgeous switch" is hard-earned. Wang Yachi, director of the Office of Chongyang County Vanadium Industry, said "In the past, some people invested in illegal vanadium refining factory. Those illegal vanadium factories mined disorderly, which caused a great waste of the resources and damage to the ecological environment. The state has prohibited such acts explicitly by law.

　　Chongyang County organized departments in charge of public security, safety supervision and environmental protection to explode and seal decisively all the illegal vanadium refining furnaces throughout the county. More than 100 illegal vanadium refining furnaces were exploded and sealed, which effectively prevented the resources waste and environmental destruction.

　　Technology is the "catalyst" of boosting the vanadium industry operators to achieve a gorgeous switch. At present, FEV 80 of the Yoojin Vanadium CO., LTD. has been put into production. A new production line with an annual output of 3000 tons of vanadium pentoxide is planned, and the project has now entered the pilot phase; furthermore, Beijing Prudent Energy Corporation has signed an agreement of settling its vanadium battery project in Chongyang; besides, Jing Yang CO., LTD. has been newly equipped with a production line of the vanadium nitrogen alloy, and the major indicators of its products meet or even exceed the level of the same domestic industry; in addition, Jing Vanadium Smelting LLC. has been listed in one of the four provincial pilot enterprises of the stone coal vanadium extraction with its production technology identified as "zero emission of the three wastes (waste gas, waste water and industrial residue)" by experts from the Department of Science and Technology of Hubei Province; moreover, Haitian Vanadium CO., LTD. invests 20 million yuan in building the project of purification of ammonium metavanadate to extract 5,000 tons offine vanadium, and its pre-engineering has been completed.

　　Chen Wubin, magistrate of the county, introduces that the county has formed a industrial chain from extracting vanadium to FEV 50, FEV 80, vanalium and FeVN from stone coal and catalyst, and fine vanadium processing. Enterprises in vanadium industrial designated scale or above reached 15. Last year, industry-wide output value reached 760 million yuan, sales income achieved 650 million yuan, and taxation expenses attained 23 million yuan, with an respective increase of 44%, 27%, and 24% over the previous year.

　　Vanadium Industrial Groups Are "Sailing towards a brighter future"

　　How to develop and strengthen the vanadium industry and make it a pillar industry of the county economy and a key industry to enrich the people? That has been the concern of Chongyang County CPC Committee and the county government.

　　According to the development status of the vanadium industry, the county has developed the Vanadium Industry Association and the Vanadium Industry Office in recent years. The Vanadium Industry Association strengthens the communication services between enterprises, and sharing of information resources; the Vanadium Industry Office does well in coordinating the external environment, financing services and technical services for vanadium enterprises.

　　On September 19th, 2011, Hubei Chongyang Vanadium Industrial Group was officially established. This is an industrial group based on a parent firm Hubei Chongyang Vanadium Industry Limited Liability Company, with three subsidiaries, and nine joint stock companies. Its registered capital has reached 100 million yuan.

　　It is worth mentioning that last year saw the heavy toll of the international financial crisis, and the vanadium industry which was subject to the steel industry suffered an unprecedented impact. Thanks to the formation of the Vanadium Industrial Group, Chongyang County effectively improved vanadium enterprises' capability to withstand the financial crisis, successfully turning crisis into opportunities.

　　Liao Jianming, secretary of Chongyang County CPC Committee and the deputy magistrate, introduced that Hubei Chongyang Vanadium Industrial Group plans to "strive for the upstream, strengthen the middle reaches and occupy the downstream". Upstream refers to the deep processing of vanadium pentoxide as raw materials. The Chongyang people have set up more than 70 large-scale and medium-scale vanadium pentoxide enterprises throughout the country, which are unparalleled in the field of vanadium extraction from stone coal; the middle reaches refers to the deep processing of products, and Chongyang vanadium processing has formed a sound industrial chain; the downstream refers to the high-tech vanadium products. The vanadium batteries, at present, are the most cutting-edge and high-tech vanadium products worldwide, and the corresponding industries have successfully settled down in Chongyang.

　　Based on the Vanadium Industrial Groups, Chongyang vanadium industry is sailing towards a brighter future. Taking Chongyang Vanadium Industrial Group as the main body, Chongyang County strengthens the construction of platforms of information, warehouse and test of the vanadium industry, etc. What's more, aiming at high-tech and green vanadium industry, Chongyang has been constructed as the county's major vanadium products trading and distributing centre.

　　Cheng Qunlin said with confidence, "in five to eight years, Chongyang vanadium industry has the prospect of achieving an output of 50 billion yuan and spurring tax to surpass 300 million yuan.