Policy Dividends and Demand Upgrade: China's Steel Cable Industry Embraces Upsurge of High-Quality Development in 2025
Since 2025, driven by the continuous advancement of new infrastructure, deepening of the "dual carbon" strategy and expansion of overseas markets in China, the steel cable industry has shown a comprehensive development trend of "policy support, technological breakthroughs, strong demand and recovery in exports". The latest industry data shows that the domestic stainless steel cable market size reached 38.76 billion yuan in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%, and is expected to further expand to 40.83 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%. The industry is accelerating its transformation towards high-endization, intelligence and greenization.
Policy Precision Empowers, Consolidating Development Support
Policy support has become an important engine for industry growth. In 2024, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) jointly issued the Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Innovative Development of Special Metal Products, which clearly provides financial subsidies and tax incentives for the R&D of high-performance stainless steel cables, focusing on supporting the technological breakthrough of high-strength corrosion-resistant steel cables with tensile strength exceeding 2000MPa. This has driven the implementation of 12 key projects, with a total investment of 980 million yuan in special funds, a year-on-year increase of 16.7%. At the local level, major industrial clusters such as Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang have introduced supporting policies: Jiangsu Province provides post-subsidies of 25% of the annual R&D investment for steel cable enterprises serving high-end equipment, with a maximum subsidy of 30 million yuan per project; Guangdong Province has established a 2 billion yuan special industrial fund to focus on supporting the development of the marine wind power steel cable industrial chain, effectively reducing enterprise innovation costs and strengthening the industrial cluster effect.
At the same time, the green and low-carbon policy orientation continues to tighten. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment revised the Clean Production Evaluation Index System for the Iron and Steel Industry in 2024, incorporating the unit energy consumption and wastewater discharge intensity of steel cable production into mandatory assessments. It requires that by the end of 2025, advanced enterprises' comprehensive energy consumption per unit product shall not exceed 580 kg of standard coal/ton, a decrease of 12% compared with the current standard. Driven by policy incentives, the number of enterprises certified as green factories continues to expand. As of the end of 2024, 37 steel cable enterprises have obtained certification, accounting for 61.4% of the total production capacity, an increase of 8.2 percentage points compared with 2023. About 150,000 tons of backward production capacity has been eliminated, and the industrial structure has been continuously optimized.
Technological Breakthroughs in Key Areas, Accelerating Localization Replacement
Domestic enterprises have achieved remarkable results in technological research in the field of high-end steel cables, gradually breaking international monopolies. The permanent mooring steel cables developed by leading enterprise Guizhou Wire Rope Co., Ltd. have been successfully applied to the "Nanhai Fenjin" FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading Unit), realizing the zero breakthrough in the localization of key mooring equipment in China. The product is required to serve in the marine environment for at least 20 years, demonstrating the high reliability of domestic steel cables. In addition, enterprises continue to make efforts in material R&D and process upgrading, adopting high-wear-resistant stainless steel alloys, high-precision heat treatment technology and automated production lines. The launched special steel cables with corrosion resistance, high strength and light weight have met the needs of high-end fields such as aerospace and deep-sea resource exploitation.
Intelligent production has become the core competitiveness of enterprises. At present, the level of automated production of domestic steel cable enterprises has exceeded 80%. By introducing technologies such as digital twins and intelligent monitoring, production efficiency has increased by more than 30%, and the stability of product performance has been significantly enhanced. In terms of standard-setting, enterprises such as Guizhou Wire Rope have presided over or participated in the formulation and revision of 55 national, industrial and international standards, marking that China has gained international discourse power in the field of steel wire rope manufacturing technology.
Continuous Optimization of Demand Structure, Emerging Fields Becoming Growth Engines
The diversified expansion of downstream application markets has injected lasting momentum into the industry. Bridge construction remains the core demand area with an annual demand exceeding 1 million tons. Major projects such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Zangke River Grand Bridge all adopt high-end domestic steel cable products. The marine engineering and new energy sectors have shown the most rapid growth. In 2024, the demand for steel cables in marine engineering reached 800,000 tons, mainly used in offshore wind power, deep-sea aquaculture platforms and other projects; the demand in the wind power generation sector reached 300,000 tons. With the continuous expansion of wind power installed capacity, the demand will maintain rapid growth in the future. In addition, the rise of industries such as new energy vehicles, rail transit and high-end equipment manufacturing has further broadened the application scenarios of high-performance steel cables, driving the industry's demand structure to tilt towards high-value-added fields.
From the perspective of regional distribution, the East China region and the Pearl River Delta account for 60% of the national total production capacity by virtue of their sound industrial foundation, among which Jiangsu Province accounts for more than 40% of the total number of enterprises; relying on resource endowments and policy support, the central and western regions are gradually becoming new growth poles, and the industrial layout is becoming more balanced. In 2024, the total industrial capacity reached 5 million tons, with an annual output of about 3.8 million tons. The market share of leading enterprises exceeded 30%, and the industry concentration continued to increase.
Steady Expansion of Export Market, Enhancing Overseas Competitiveness
Benefiting from the accelerated infrastructure construction in countries along the "Belt and Road", the export of domestic steel cables has shown a recovery trend. It is expected that the industry's export volume will exceed 1.25 billion US dollars in 2025, with Southeast Asia, Africa and other regions becoming the main growth points. Local port and bridge projects have a strong demand for cost-effective Chinese steel cables. Relying on technological upgrading and cost advantages, domestic enterprises are gradually seizing market share in the international market. Enterprises such as Jiangsu Xinghai Special Steel achieved an 18.7% year-on-year increase in export volume in 2024, demonstrating strong overseas market development capabilities.
Industry experts said that in 2025, the steel cable industry will continue to benefit from the triple driving forces of policy dividends, technological innovation and market demand, and high-endization, intelligence and greenization will remain the core development directions. In the future, leading enterprises with core technology R&D capabilities, green production qualifications and overseas market development experience will lead the industry to achieve higher-quality development, promoting China's steel cable industry to accelerate its transformation from a "manufacturing power" to a "manufacturing powerhouse".