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When a major enterprise and a city walk together for 70 years, what kind of story do they write? Tongling City in Anhui Province stands as a vivid example of a city and enterprise advancing in tandem. From the first furnace of copper water in New China to a new landmark of the copper industry cluster, in this city that takes its name from copper and thrives on copper, Tongling Nonferrous and Tongling City have moved in the same direction for 70 years. How has Tongling Nonferrous traversed development cycles and maintained its resilience? We begin with a smart copper manufacturing project.

Growth genes that reach upward

In the Tongling Economic Development Zone, the "flash smelting and flash converting" system of Tongling Nonferrous's Jinguan Copper runs smoothly, making it the largest single-mine copper smelting plant in the country. Not far from Jinguan, the 10.3 billion yuan Jinxin Copper green intelligent copper-based new materials project has been fully commissioned, helping Tongling Nonferrous's annual cathode copper capacity rise to first place globally. On the intelligent control screen at Tongling Nonferrous's Jinguan Copper, operating parameters jump in real time, and several staff members analyze the figures and issue instructions through electronic devices; across the ultra-large plant area, trees and grass flourish, with no trace of the smoke and dust of a traditional smelter. Yet few could imagine that this single-mine copper smelting plant, now first in the country and leading globally, was more than a decade ago a desolate riverside marshland. Looking back at the leapfrog development of Jinguan Copper, the "double flash" project was its most representative move. The so-called "double flash" refers to the advanced smelting processes of flash smelting and flash converting. From the approval of Jinguan Copper's "double flash" project in 2009 to its current status as an industry benchmark for green smelting and intelligent manufacturing, every step of Jinguan Copper's growth bears the imprint of Tongling Nonferrous's upward trajectory. Viewed along the timeline, the footprint of this city-enterprise progress becomes even clearer. First came the founding period. In December 1949, the central government decided to restore and build the Tongguanshan Mining Bureau, which was both the starting point of New China's copper industry and the origin of Tongling's urban development. In the early years of the founding of the People's Republic, the first generation of builders from all over the country started from scratch and spent more than three years completing New China's first large copper mine designed independently; in May 1953, it successfully produced New China's first furnace of copper water and cast its first copper ingot, making Tongling recognized as the "cradle of New China's copper industry." Advancing alongside enterprise construction was the gradual formation of the city itself. Relying on population concentration and industrial supporting facilities around the mining area, Tongling evolved step by step from scattered industrial and mining districts into a complete industrial city. In 1956, Tongguanshan City was formally established, and in 1958 it was renamed Tongling City, laying the foundation for the urban DNA of "a city established for copper and prospering through copper." Next came the period of transformation and leapfrog development. After reform and opening up, Tongling Nonferrous actively adapted to the requirements of the market economy, successively implementing development strategies such as "one main business with diversified operations" and "streamlining the main body while expanding both wings," pushing the enterprise to transform from traditional planned production to market-oriented operations. In 2000, after Tongling Nonferrous was transferred from direct central management to Anhui provincial management, and with the support of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, the provincial government, and the Tongling Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government, it accelerated project construction and expanded production scale. In 2012, it became Anhui Province's first hundred-billion-yuan enterprise and joined the ranks of the country's large enterprise groups, also lifting Tongling City's industrial level to a new stage. Among these, the Dongguashan Copper Mine was a typical case of this stage. As a key construction project during the national "Tenth Five-Year Plan" period and the largest deep-well copper mine under construction in China at the time, the Dongguashan project advanced in an orderly manner with local supporting guarantees and was fully completed and put into operation in 2004, significantly enhancing Tongling Nonferrous's self-sufficiency in local copper resources and laying a solid upstream resource foundation for subsequent smelting capacity expansion and full-industry-chain layout. Third came the high-quality development period. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, high-quality development has become the theme of the times, and Tongling Nonferrous also began a deep transformation of its development model, entering a strategic stage of full-chain layout and systematic upgrading. Anchored to the direction of "building a world-class enterprise with global competitiveness," Tongling Nonferrous shifted its development logic from an emphasis on scale expansion to a dual rise in quality and efficiency, continuously advancing chain extension and supplementation, extending into high-end materials and deep processing, and driving the entire industrial ecosystem toward higher value-added links. From a furnace of copper water at Tongguanshan to a Fortune Global 500 enterprise; from the initial fulcrum of an industrial city to the core leader of a world-class copper industry cluster, what development code does Tongling Nonferrous hold?

Multidimensional breakthroughs built on strength

"During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the domestic copper industry experienced severe cyclical fluctuations, widespread industry pressure, and fierce competition," several industry experts said. Over these five years, tight global copper raw material supply evolved into a structural shortage, copper smelting processing fees fell to historic lows, metal prices fluctuated widely, and the profit space of traditional smelters was continuously squeezed. Research found that under such industry conditions, Tongling Nonferrous did not passively depend on the cycle; instead, through a two-way breakthrough of tapping internal potential and expanding overseas, it completed systematic upgrades across four dimensions: scale and efficiency, industrial chain, green intelligence, and innovation momentum, forging an advancement path for a traditional resource-based state-owned enterprise to develop against the cycle. Its business data, growing steadily against the trend, are the most intuitive footnote to Tongling Nonferrous's development. Facing cyclical downward pressure in the industry, Tongling Nonferrous did not take the old path of "living off the market," but instead threaded an efficiency orientation through the entire production and operation chain. In the mining segment, it continuously expanded its domestic and international copper mine footprint and seized price windows to maintain stable and high output; in the smelting segment, it offset the impact of low processing fees through process index optimization; in the new materials segment, it anchored to high-end markets to raise product premiums, with all segments coordinating, tapping internal potential, and striving externally, thereby offsetting the negative shocks of a complex environment. "Over the five years, Tongling Nonferrous's main production indicators exceeded targets year after year, and in 2025 its operating performance reached the best level in history, with economic scale and profit quality rising in tandem and risk resistance and development resilience reaching a new level," said the head of Tongling Nonferrous's Operations Management Department. With a sound fundamental base, Tongling Nonferrous has ranked among the Fortune Global 500 for eight consecutive years, firmly holding the top spot in both the Anhui Top 100 Enterprises and the Anhui Top 100 Manufacturing Enterprises, becoming an important pillar for stable growth and improved efficiency among provincial state-owned enterprises. Behind these impressive results lies the strategic depth built by a full-chain layout. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Tongling Nonferrous focused on its main responsibilities and core business, continuing to strengthen, supplement, and extend the chain along the logic of "secure resources upstream, strengthen smelting midstream, expand high-end downstream, and empower with capital," steadily consolidating its industrial foundation. At the upstream resource end, the second-phase expansion project of the Mirador copper mine in Ecuador was fully completed, setting a new speed for overseas mine engineering construction. In overseas copper mine construction, it successively secured two major copper mine projects in Angola and Zambia, greatly enhancing overseas resource security capacity. At the domestic capacity end, the commissioning of Jinxin Copper's green intelligent copper-based new materials project pushed annual cathode copper capacity to first place globally, consolidating the dual advantages of scale and technology. At the resource succession end, it successfully bid for the exploration rights of the Jiguanshan-Hucun copper-gold-molybdenum mine, effectively easing resource succession pressure at flagship mines and extending mine service cycles. At the capital empowerment end, Tongguan Mine Construction successfully listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange, and A-share listed company Tongguan Copper Foil was rated a benchmark enterprise in the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission's "Double Hundred Action" and is a leader in domestic HVLP copper foil, forming an industrial pattern with prominent main business and a clear echelon. Through optimizing its full industrial chain layout, Tongling Nonferrous further consolidated the "underlying support" for long-term competitiveness. Activating internal momentum through an innovation system is a key move in Tongling Nonferrous's high-quality development. Behind industrial upgrading is the continuous empowerment of scientific and technological innovation. Observing Tongling Nonferrous during the 14th Five-Year Plan period leads to one conclusion: this was not scattered breakthroughs in single-point technologies, but the formation and effectiveness of an entire innovation system spanning "platform-technology-transformation." At Tongling Nonferrous's Technology Center, an innovation support system covering the entire industrial chain has gradually taken shape. At the core R&D level, it built a comprehensive R&D platform running through the entire mining, beneficiation, and smelting process, laying a foundation for technical breakthroughs in the main business; in the design and consulting field, it evolved from the early standout strength in metallurgical design into a professional pattern in which mine and metallurgical design advance together; in the testing and analysis segment, it moved beyond the basic positioning of single-sample analysis toward an advanced model of coordinated development between testing services and technical research. In green and intelligent transformation, Tongling Nonferrous consolidated its development foundation and reshaped its core competitiveness. At Tongling Nonferrous, green and intelligent are no longer merely "cost items" for compliance, but "value items" that reshape the enterprise's core competitiveness. At the green development level, the construction of a "waste-free group" has accelerated comprehensively, smelting waste residue and production wastewater maintain a high recycling rate, and waste heat and pressure recovery achieve both cost reduction and carbon reduction, with multiple subordinate plants rated national-level green factories, and the circular economy model moving from pilot projects to group-wide promotion. At the intelligent transformation level, Jinguan Copper and Jinlong Copper were successively included in the national 5G factory list; in 2025, three units were recognized as provincial advanced-level smart factories, and seven units were recognized as provincial basic-level smart factories. "At present, digital technology is upgrading from production assistance to efficiency improvement. By continuously deepening the special action of 'mechanization replacing people and automation reducing people,' Tongling Nonferrous is achieving dual improvements in production efficiency and control precision, which has become the core engine of high-quality development," said the head of Tongling Nonferrous's Science and Technology Management Department.

A long-term journey connected by shared commitment

Entering Tongling Nonferrous Copper Crown Electrical Engineering Co., Ltd., production lines are running at full power, machines operate at high speed, processes flow in orderly fashion, and a bustling scene of intense activity unfolds before the eyes. With technical accumulation from years of deep cultivation in a segmented field, the company has successfully overcome core technical challenges such as ultra-fine enameled wire, coating uniformity, and high-temperature stability, and its products are already widely used in high-end equipment fields such as aerospace and nuclear power. This is just a vivid microcosm of Tongling Nonferrous anchoring to high-end tracks and accelerating development. Zooming out to the whole of Tongling, from the rapid landing of major projects to the continuous upgrading of the industrial chain, while Tongling Nonferrous develops with high quality, it is also driving the local industrial ecosystem to improve in quality and move toward excellence. Relying on technical accumulation across the full industrial chain, Tongling Nonferrous's industrial capabilities continue to break through factory boundaries and spill over faster into the local industrial ecosystem. The joint research between Anhui science and innovation enterprise Jinxing Intelligent Control and Jinguan Copper is a typical sample of this capability spillover. Addressing industry pain points such as lagging composition detection of nonferrous smelting materials and process control highly dependent on experience, Jinguan Copper opened its full-process production scenarios and process data and shared its professional testing R&D platform; Jinxing Intelligent Control contributed core intelligent detection equipment, and the two sides jointly created an intelligent smelting solution based on online composition detection. The solution realizes non-contact online perception of material composition and pushes production from "experience-based copper smelting" to "smart copper smelting," significantly improving copper resource utilization and production efficiency, with results winning multiple provincial and ministerial awards including the first prize of the Anhui Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award. "Our internal quality testing, pilot testing, and process R&D platforms are gradually opening to supporting enterprises within the province, allowing small and medium-sized enterprises to share professional technical resources without heavy investment," said the head of Tongling Nonferrous's Innovation Development Department. Under the traction of Tongling Nonferrous, Tongling City's copper-based new materials industrial cluster was successively selected as a national strategic emerging industry cluster and an Anhui advanced manufacturing cluster, and was praised by experts from the World Copper Processing Association as China's copper deep processing industrial base with the most complete variety, the most complete industrial chain, and the most complete supporting system in the copper processing field. Development moving toward new and better directions cannot be separated from the deep iteration of the coordinated development model between Tongling City and Tongling Nonferrous. In February this year, the Tongling Municipal Party Committee, the Municipal Government, and Tongling Nonferrous Group held a joint meeting and proposed that the city and enterprise should jointly write a new chapter of development in which "Tongling Nonferrous succeeds and the whole city's development wins." This was already the 17th joint meeting between the two sides. In fact, as early as 2014, Tongling City and Tongling Nonferrous formally established a city-enterprise joint meeting mechanism; in 2018, the "Joint Meeting System between Tongling City and Tongling Nonferrous Group" was issued, further solidifying it into a four-level normalized communication system of "annual reporting, quarterly consultation, monthly coordination, and daily communication." From temporary communication in the past of "coordinating only when problems arise and connecting only when there are projects" to normalized and systematic top-level co-planning, this mechanism gradually pieced the originally separate "two planning maps" into a "development blueprint" with consistent goals and coordinated paths. Facing the 15th Five-Year Plan, the two-way journey between city and enterprise has gained new common coordinates. Tongling Nonferrous is striving toward the goal of a world-class enterprise and enhancing global competitiveness, deeply intertwined with Tongling City's vision of building a world-class copper-based new materials cluster, with the two supporting and complementing each other. For the enterprise, the city provides more complete factor carrying capacity and industrial ecology; for the city, the leading enterprise's technology, capital, market, and project traction will further drive upstream and downstream clustering, industrial chain extension, and cluster growth. Tongling City will continue the 70-year symbiotic relationship between city and enterprise, proactively connecting and providing forward-leaning services, understanding Tongling Nonferrous, linking with it, relying on it, supporting it, learning from it, and joining hands with it, adhering to a people-centered approach, and jointly doing a good job in the major article of integrated "people, industry, and city" development, moving toward a new stage of "two-way leap" between city and enterprise. The stronger the enterprise, the higher the city's industrial coordinates; the better the urban ecosystem, the firmer the foundation for the enterprise to move toward world-class status. This is precisely the original aspiration and driving force that has never been interrupted in the two-way journey between Tongling Nonferrous and Tongling City, and it is also the greatest confidence for this story of city-enterprise symbiosis as it moves into the future.