1. 1919-1948: Saving the Nation by Engaging in Industry and Constantly Striving to Become Stronger

During the 30 years before the liberation, the Shougang Group went through every vicissitude. At the beginning of its establishment, its predecessor Shijingshan Iron & Steel Works, run by far-sighted people who devoted themselves to the industry and were determined to save the country, could not realize their aspirations, and regretted it all their lives. The old generation of the Shougang Group went through the hardships and disturbance of the warlord war, suffered the squeezing and bullying of the Japanese invaders, and witnessed the corruption and ignorance of the Kuomintang (KMT), and its cumulative production amount of pig iron in these 30 years was only 286,000 tons. However, the majority of workers were not willing to be enslaved; they used sabotage to resist, went on repeated strikes and held ‘food petitions’.

This 30-year ever-changing history reflects the tragic situation of Beijing’s black metallurgical industry in the semi-colonial & semi-feudal society. This is not only the disgraceful and resistant history of the Chinese Nation, but also the suffering and self-improvement history of the Shougang Group. It underwent many changes through the difficult and tortuous process of accumulating the Chinese Nation’s traditional and national spirit, and the difficulty was endless and indomitable, but we think that disastrous adversity can make talents rise, and this is the precious wealth accumulated by the Shougang Group in the 30 years before the liberation.

2. 1948-1978: Making Contributions to Our Country by Establishing Great Enterprises, and Persisting in Working Hard

On December 17th, 1948, when the People’s Liberation Army liberated the Shijingshan Iron & Steel Works, it became the first state-owned iron & steel enterprise in Beijing. The workers of the Shijingshan Iron & Steel Works carried forward the spirit of ownership and quickly sparked a labor boom of production recovery. The workers built a small 3-ton side-blow converter in 14 days, and ended the history of Shijingshan Iron & Steel Works producing iron but not steel; when they built a small steel rolling production line with an annual output of 300,000 tons, it marked the starting point of the rolled steel of Shijingshan Iron & Steel Works; next, China’s first oxygen converter opened a new chapter in China’s converter steelmaking; in 1965, pulverized coal injected into the blast furnace, the furnace coke ratio and other economic and technical indicators of Shijingshan Iron & Steel Works reached the world’s advanced level, so that its steelmaking technology ranked at the leading level in the country. On September 13th, 1967, approved by the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry, Shijingshan Iron & Steel Works changed name to ‘Capital Shougang Co., Ltd. (‘Shougang Group’).

Over the 30 years from 1948 to 1978, the Shougang Group fought to grow up and become stronger, and our workers created an ‘industry to serve the country’ and a hard entrepreneurial history through an unyielding entrepreneurial spirit. The workers of the Shougang Group formed the fine tradition of loving the Party, loving the country, cherishing your post, devoting yourself wholeheartedly to your work, dedicating yourself selflessly and taking the overall situation into account, and formed the mainstream values of returning to the community, returning to the motherland and returning to the people.

3. 1979-2002: Reforming and Soaring, Exploring and Developing

In 1979, the workers of the Shougang Group were the forerunner in carrying out the contract system as the first batch of pilot units determined by the country. On December 15th, 1979, the No. 2 Blast Furnace Renovation Project of the Shougang Group was completed and went into operation, becoming the first modern blast furnace in China. At the same time, the second steel works founded on equipment purchased from the Sailan Steel Works in Belgium and the third steel works founded by relying on our own strength were put into operation one after the other. The third wire rod plant of the Shougang Group was established and put into operation in the same period, and the original first and second wire rod plants became the country’s largest wire production base. In 1982, 400,000 copies of the book introducing the contract system of the Shougang Group were published, and visitors and students from all over the country reached tens of thousands per month. In 1994, the steel production of the Shougang Group expanded to 8.24 million tons (from 1.79 million in 1978), exceeding the steel production amount of the Angang Group to rank first in the country.

In 1996, the Shougang Group was officially established. During this period, our workers further enriched the culture connotations, providing a strong spiritual power for the Shougang Group to achieve the dream of steel power, promote the pace of self-transformation, self-accumulation and development by being ‘master of the world, reaching the top’, possessing innovation and courage, and adhering to being ‘pioneering, unremitting and hardworking’, and strict ‘three hundred percent’ management.

4. 2003-2012: Relocation Adjustment, Scientific Development

In 2003, the Shougang Group placed the highest importance on national interests, dedicated itself to the Olympics, honored its commitments and took the lead in unprecedented relocation adjustment. By the end of 2010, the steel-involved section in Beijing had been comprehensively shut down. In Hebei Province, Shougang Jingtang, Shougang Qiangang and Shougang Shouqin were newly founded, while the cold rolled company and the other modern steel plant were newly founded in Shunyi, Beijing. At the same time, we achieved a joint reorganization with the Guizhou Shuigang, Guigang, Shanxi Changgang, Jilin Tonggang and Xinjiang Yili Steel plants. The industrial structure achieved a transformation from being long product-oriented to high-end boards and competitive long products. After nearly a decade of hard work, the steel industry had expanded from Beijing to many provinces and cities in our country, the product structure achieved an historic change, the non-steel industry operating conditions improved significantly, and the overall strength of the Group was significantly enhanced. In 2011, the Shougang Group was ranked 325th among the Fortune 500 companies. So far, it has been ranked among the Fortune 500 companies for six consecutive years.

During this period, the Shougang Group conformed to the objective requirements of the economic and social development and construction of the capital, undertook relocation adjustment with the spirit of the ‘pioneers’ and became the first large iron and steel enterprise in China to relocate towards the coastal areas. In the period of relocation adjustment, the workers of the Shougang Group were committed to ‘innovation, delivering excellence, starting up businesses and constructing a new Shougang Group in the 21st century’, and casting the glory and dreams inherited generation by generation in the great practice of the construction of a new Shougang Group in the 21st century with the spirits of hard work, self-improvement, willingness to sacrifice and the courage to innovate.

5. From 2013 to Now: Innovation-driven, Transformation and Development

The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC initiated a comprehensive deepening of reform, and the Shougang Group also entered a critical period of comprehensively deepening reform and accelerating transformation development. It clarified the development direction of the enterprise, built a new high-end industrial integrated service area in the old factory in Beijing, opened the West Gate of the capital and became a new economic growth pole through the implementation of ‘creating a new capital operation platform and achieving the coordinated development of the steel industry and urban integrated service industry’ strategy. The Shougang Group will adhere to reform and innovation, promote transformation and development, cast new glories and strive to achieve the ‘Shougang Group-oriented’ dream, continuing to construct a comprehensive large enterprise group that has influence in the world. The Shougang Group will play a greater role in the adjustment of regional industrial structure and the construction of the ecological environment, and become the platform and link of the implementation of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development strategy; it will become the demonstration area of the capital concerning curing ‘urban diseases’, solve the contradiction between population resources and environment, and become an innovation-driven platform in capital and one of the most dynamic areas; and it will fulfill the social responsibility of a state-owned enterprise and become an integrated service provider for new-type cities.

Facing the new task of the transformation and development of the Shougang Group, the Party Committee of the Shougang Group issued the 13th Five-year Plan for the Shougang Group’s Enterprise Culture Construction. We summarize, refine and inherit the Shougang spirit of being ‘pioneering, unremitting and hardworking’, and carry forward the spirit of being ‘highly responsible, innovative and leading’ in the new era. We issued the Decision to Inherit and Carry Out the Spirit of the Shougang Group, and pinpointed the guiding ideology, objective tasks, implementation of the path and measures to ensure the strengthening of our corporate culture in the new era. We will be guided by the spirit of the 18th National Congress and the spirits of the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Plenary Sessions of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC, as well as the series of important speeches given by General Secretary Xi Jinping. We will adhere to the ‘Shougang Group service, Shougang Group Brand, Shougang Group creation’ core value to promote innovation, excellence and entrepreneurship, set out on the new Long March road of transformation and development, and gather positive energy for achieving the rapid and excellent development of the Shougang Group.