Ningbo plans to focus on the development of five new functional materials in the coming years in an attempt to build the city into a domestic hub for new materials. 

The city aims to boost the output of the new materials sector to 100 billion yuan ($14.49 billion) by 2022, the municipal development and reform commission recently announced.

New functional materials play a crucial role in determining basic industrial capacity, industrial chain level, and industrial competitiveness in a region, and Ningbo now has a solid foundation to develop this sector, experts say. 

Preliminary statistics show that the city is now home to roughly 170 enterprises above the designated size in the new materials sector, with the total output of said enterprises exceeding 80 billion yuan in 2019. 

In February last year, the new materials industrial cluster in the city was selected as a national strategic emerging industrial cluster. In May, the city's remarkable progress in developing the industrial cluster won recognition by the State Council, China's cabinet.

Not ones to rest on their laurels, the local authorities plan to prioritize the development of five categories of new functional materials – metal, rare earth, film, high-quality synthetic rubber and graphene, and are striving to construct complete industrial chains ranging from raw materials, applied materials and technologies to applied devices and terminal products. 

Meanwhile, efforts will be made to ramp up innovation by accelerating the construction of business incubators and research organs co-built with universities such as Dalian University of Technology and Northwestern Polytechnical University.

A total of 24 new materials projects are currently under construction or soon to begin construction in the city, with a total investment of over 40 billion yuan.