On 29th April,  "The Eighth Meeting of the Eighth Session of the Council and The Twelfth  Meeting of the Standing Council of the Eighth Session of CAMT", organized by CAMT and undertaken by Steel Searcher Company, was successfully held in Shanghai. Chen Leiming, Secretary of the Party Branch; Li Maojin, Co-Chairman, the Rotating Chairman for 2025, and Chairman of Tianjin Youfa Steel Pipe Group Co., Ltd.; Sun Jicheng, Co-Chairman and Assistant to the General Manager of Hebei Logistics Industry Group Co., Ltd. ; Li Gang, Co-Chairman， Director and President of South China Materials Group Co., Ltd. and ; as well as Vice Chairmen, Standing Directors, Directors and some heads of branches gathered by the Huangpu River to jointly discuss the development plan of the steel industry.

                                   The  meeting was presided over by Li Maojin.

At the beginning of the meeting, Wang Dong, the founder, Chairman and CEO of Steel Searcher Company, delivered a welcome speech, extending a warm welcome to the attending guests. He stated that over the past 13 years since its establishment, Steel Searcher Company has been dedicated to the "connection" service. By leveraging Internet and digital technologies, it has enhanced the efficiency of the industrial chain and provided safe, high-quality and convenient services for both upstream and downstream parties. In the face of current challenges,Steel Searcher Company will be more pragmatic in solving problems for users and strengthening the resilience of the industrial chain. Wang Dong expressed his gratitude for the strong support from CAMT and industry colleagues. He also mentioned that Steel Searcher Company has applied to become a vice-chairman unit and hopes to work hand in hand with all parties, pool strength together, and contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of China's steel circulation industrial chain.

Chen Leiming pointed out that 2025 is the final year for implementing the 14th Five-Year Plan and also a crucial year for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan. Meanwhile, it is also the year for the general elections of the Party branch and the board of directors of the association. In March, the general election of the Party branch has been completed, and the general election work of the Ninth Board of Directors has also been put on the agenda. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to further expand opening up, and the state is formulating a series of policies to boost the economy and respond to the US tariff war. The steel industry is expected to gradually recover with the support of these policies, but the in-depth adjustment and reconstruction of the industry are still ongoing. Against the backdrop of the rapid development of AI and digital technologies, all member enterprises of the association need to follow the principles of the supply chain, strengthen, supplement and extend the industrial chain, avoid vicious competition, actively go global, and promote coordinated development, innovation and upgrading. The Ninth Board of Directors will shoulder a more important historical mission. During the difficult period of industry development, it is necessary to more earnestly perform functions of "leading, guiding, standardizing and serving", provide more powerful support for the innovative development of member units, and deeply empower the industry to get out of the trough.

Zhang Yanju, Deputy Secretary General of CAMT, read out the report on the "Main Work Summary for 2024 and Main Work Plan for 2025". She mainly introduced the twelve major tasks carried out by the association in 2024, and pointed out the existing problems and suggestions for improvement. The report reflected the efforts and achievements made by the association in aspects such as market research, listening to the voices of enterprises, solving the pain points and difficulties of the industry and enterprises, and offering suggestions and advice to the government. In the work plan for 2025, the association will focus on the development needs of the industry, take standardization work as the starting point, take the digital transformation and the promotion and implementation of artificial intelligence technology as the main line, follow the principle of "creating value for members", assist enterprises in transformation, upgrading and coordinated development, and make efforts for the in-depth transformation of the industry.

The successful holding of this event enabled the participants to view from a global, international and industry perspective that, under the guidance of policies, the steel industry is transforming from scale expansion to high-quality development; catalyzed by the platform economy, the traditional industrial chain is accelerating the reconstruction of its value chain; with the empowerment of science and technology, technologies such as AI are reshaping the "digital nervous system" for supply chain decision-making; during the process of navigating through cycles, the transformation and upgrading driven by innovation have become an inevitable choice.