On February 1, CIE and Hunan Valin Xiangtan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd.(Hereinafter referred to as "Valin Xiangtan Steel") signed the contract for the EPC general contracting project of the sintering machine body (the project for environment-friendly and technological renovation of sintering machines).

As one of the key units involving environment-friendly and technological renovation projects, this project is for building a new 450 m2 sintering machine. In the construction of the Project, CIE will adopt domestic and foreign mature, reliable and advanced processes and technologies, especially the advanced, practical and effective ones for energy saving, consumption reduction and automatic control, to improve the intelligent manufacturing and realize the monitoring for the operation of key process equipment as well as electrical equipment, in a bid to ensure safe stable production for a long term and reduce energy consumption. After the project is completed and put into operation, its main technical and economic indicators will reach the advanced level domestically.