The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposes that we should comprehensively seize opportunities, calmly respond to challenges, and thus win initiative, advantages, and the future. At present, the fluorine chemical industry is in a special historical period where opportunities and challenges coexist, and the contradiction between overcapacity and insufficient supply is prominent. How to successfully respond to the challenges and maintain the sustainable and healthy development of the industry is a task that must be done with great efforts.

In the past decade, the fluorine chemical industry has gone through a stage of rapid development, completing the transformation from a small and weak fluorine chemical country to a large country. The achievements made are obvious to all, and the production capacity and output of fluorine chemical products are second to none in the world. However, rapid development also brings drawbacks, such as low-level repetitive construction of devices, severe overcapacity of general products, and excessive consumption of fluorite resources. This extensive high-speed development model has begun to constrain the development of the industry, and the driving force for sustainable development of the industry is seriously insufficient.

During the 11th Five Year Plan period, deep-seated problems such as excessive investment, rapid expansion of production capacity, homogenization, and low-end industries have already emerged. However, the industry lacks awareness and attention to this issue. Most new projects are resource dependent and low-level repetitive construction, which not only deepens the contradiction of overcapacity and intensifies market competition, but also wastes resources and pollutes the environment.

In fact, the excessive consumption of resources and environmental pollution have formed constraints on the sustainable development of the industry. The basic reserves of fluorite in China are about 11 million tons, and the proven recoverable reserves are about 21 million tons. The reserve to production ratio is 7, far lower than the global reserve to production ratio of 44.5, indicating extreme overexploitation. The scarcity of exploitable fluorite rich ore has affected the sustainable development of the industry.

The issue of environmental pollution is also the same. Fluoride industry is a high-risk industry, and the significance of doing a good job in environmental governance is no longer limited to protecting the environment and benefiting the people. By recycling and utilizing by-products, it can also improve the resource utilization rate of enterprises, reduce production costs, improve economic benefits, and enhance their competitiveness.

The report of the 18th National Congress pointed out the direction for sustainable and healthy development of the industry. The industry must take a long-term perspective, fundamentally adjust its industrial structure, transform its growth mode, and formulate future development plans based on industry characteristics.

How to win initiative and gain advantages? As for the fluorine chemical industry, it is particularly necessary to be driven by technological innovation for development. The rapid development of China's fluorine chemical industry in the past decade has benefited from a large number of independent research and development achievements accumulated in the process of developing the "two bombs and one satellite" in the past few decades. These achievements not only support the development of China's aerospace industry, but also lay a solid foundation for the rapid development of the fluorine chemical industry and the promotion of fluorine materials in the civilian field. However, today many enterprises, especially those newly entering the fluorine chemical industry, have low R&D investment, weak independent innovation capabilities, and a lack of technical resources. If this continues, without technological support, the future development of enterprises will be a tree without roots.

To effectively transform the mode of economic development, we need to form a new driving force for economic growth driven by structural optimization, efficiency improvement, and innovation. The application fields of fluorinated chemicals and materials involve multiple strategic emerging industries and high-tech fields. Without independently developed technologies and products, we can only be constrained by others. In key areas, foreign countries will not easily transfer advanced technology and high value-added products. To meet the high-end demand of the domestic market and support the development of strategic emerging industries such as energy conservation and environmental protection, new generation information technology, biology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, and new materials in China, fluorine chemical industry must make great efforts in technology and product research and development, and comprehensively enhance its technological innovation capabilities.

Therefore, we suggest increasing investment in science and technology, improving the innovation system, and ensuring the continuous enrichment of scientific and technological resources; Secondly, we need to promote the construction of various forms of innovation systems, such as innovation strategic alliances that combine industry, academia, and research, enterprise technology research and development centers, and industrial park technology innovation platforms; Thirdly, we need to increase the development of production technologies for high-end fluoropolymers, fluorinated membrane materials, and high-quality fluorinated fine chemicals (high-purity electronic chemicals, fluorinated surfactants, fluorinated intermediates, etc.), breaking through a number of key common technologies; Fourthly, actively promote advanced and applicable technologies for basic fluorine chemical products, accelerate the promotion of energy conservation, consumption reduction, clean production, and technological transformation of existing devices, further improve operational quality, and reduce manufacturing costs; The fifth is to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights and brand protection.

Only by developing reasonably according to scientific planning, accelerating the transformation of production methods, adhering to innovation driven and scientific development, can the fluorine chemical industry have a bright future.