On the occasion of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, my country's silicone industry celebrates its 70th anniversary. The industry has made remarkable achievements in basic research, engineering technology, production scale, product quality and its application. In 2020, my country's domestic silicone methyl monomer production capacity reached 60% of the global total, and its output and consumption reached 50% of the global total, making it the world's largest silicone producer and consumer. It is estimated that by the end of 2021, the domestic silicone methyl monomer production capacity will reach 4.405 million tons, accounting for 64.25% of the global silicone monomer production capacity.
      The development of my country's silicone industry began in the early 1950s. In 1951, the Beijing Chemical Experiment Institute of the Ministry of Heavy Industry used the Grignard method to synthesize silicone monomers and trial-produce silicone resins, which pioneered my country's silicone industry and application research. Until the late 1970s, my country's silicone industry was in its infancy, and the production capacity of polymers was only at the level of hundreds of tons. Silicone products are also expensive, mainly supporting military industry or used in some special industries.
After 1978, in the silicone industry, Sino-foreign joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises emerged like mushrooms after a rain, and the introduction of new technologies, new equipment and new products provided a broad stage for expanding the application of silicone. In particular, in the 1980s, a large number of global manufacturing enterprises moved to my country, which greatly stimulated the application of silicone products and promoted the development of my country's silicone industry.
      In the 1990s, my country's silicone industry developed steadily under the impetus of market demand and application technology. Among them, methyl monomer broke through the bottleneck of 10,000-ton production technology, silicone building sealants and structural adhesives were widely promoted and applied, the production technology of heat-vulcanized silicone rubber raw rubber made significant progress, the silicone rubber products processing industry developed rapidly, and became the world's major supplier of key glue products. In terms of R&D capabilities, production technology and application fields, my country has also rapidly narrowed the gap with foreign advanced levels, and initially established a relatively complete Chinese silicone industry system, laying a good foundation for the subsequent long-term development.
      While the production scale continues to expand, the level of silicone production technology in my country has also been greatly improved. In 2006, the actual annual output of heat-vulcanized silicone rubber and room temperature vulcanized silicone rubber exceeded 100,000 tons respectively, and large-scale exports of technology and products were achieved in high-temperature glue and room temperature glue.
      In the field of national defense and military industry, silicone has also made significant contributions. The amount of silicone materials used in national defense and military industry is not large but very important. Various types of silicone materials independently developed by my country have become an indispensable and important supporting material in the modernization of national defense, providing a strong guarantee for the smooth implementation of the "two bombs and one satellite", manned space flight, and almost all major national projects.
      Looking forward to the "14th Five-Year Plan", Zhu Qingzeng, deputy director of the Silicone Expert Committee of the China Fluorosilicon Organic Materials Industry Association, said that the industry should seize new application fields such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and 5G, fill the market gap in the field of key materials, and promote the development of my country's silicone materials towards high performance, multi-functionality, composite, refined, environmentally friendly, low-cost, and high added value.