Nine Chinese Ministries Unveil 2025–2027 Plan to Promote High-Quality Development of the Gold Industry

On June 23, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced that nine government departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Emergency Management, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the General Administration of Customs, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the National Mine Safety Administration, have jointly issued the Implementation Plan for the High-Quality Development of the Gold Industry (2025–2027).

Gold, as a strategic mineral resource with both commodity and monetary attributes, plays a crucial role in safeguarding national industrial and financial security. In recent years, China’s gold industry has rapidly expanded, making the country the world's largest gold producer and consumer. In 2024, China's mined gold output reached 377 tonnes, maintaining its global lead for 18 consecutive years. The country also consumed 985 tonnes of gold, ranking first worldwide for 12 consecutive years. China’s deep mining capacity has surpassed depths of 1,000 meters, and progress has been made in green cyanide residue treatment and advanced materials development for electronics and aerospace applications. However, the industry continues to face challenges including limited resource security and insufficient capacity in core technologies and equipment.

According to the plan, by 2027, China aims to improve gold resource security and innovation capacity across the entire industry chain. Gold resource reserves are targeted to grow by 5%–10%, while the output of gold and silver is expected to increase by over 5%. Technological innovation goals include applying mining and metallurgical technologies such as operations below 2,000 meters and cyanide-free extraction methods, while enhancing supply capabilities for high-end materials. In terms of industrial upgrading, over 70% of national gold output should be generated from mines with ore processing capacities of more than 500 tonnes per day. The plan also emphasizes cultivating quality enterprises, improving the industry standard system, and optimizing the overall industrial structure. Looking ahead to 2035, the goal is to establish a high-quality development framework, enhance comprehensive resource security, and build globally leading technical and industrial systems.

To strengthen the technological foundation of the industry, the plan calls for advancing key and common technologies in deep and ultra-deep exploration, green and efficient smelting, as well as developing critical equipment such as large-scale drilling rigs and precision ground pressure monitoring tools. It also aims to improve the supply of high-end products for specific application scenarios like next-generation electronics, while encouraging joint product evaluations with downstream users to boost quality and application. In addition, the plan stresses the importance of standards development for deep mining, green and low-carbon production, digital integration, and new materials, with efforts to implement, evaluate, and align standards, and to develop guidelines for responsible development in the gold industry. Construction of a national metrology and testing center for the gold sector will also be promoted.

The plan supports enterprise development through resource integration in key mining areas, encouraging the construction of “regional mines” and promoting models of decentralized mining with centralized refining. It sets capacity benchmarks for new gold processing facilities, heap leaching sites, and refining plants at 500 tonnes, 2,000 tonnes, and 200 tonnes per day, respectively. Enterprises are encouraged to pursue capital-based consolidation to form globally competitive groups and cultivate specialized leaders and “champion” companies in emerging materials related to gold and silver.

In terms of implementation, the plan calls for stronger organizational leadership and policy coordination across fiscal, financial, investment, and trade domains. It encourages key provinces and regions to integrate the plan’s objectives and key tasks into local industrial planning and project lists, while formulating supporting policies tailored to local conditions. The plan also promotes financial support for R&D in key gold and silver technologies through existing funding channels. For natural reserves with high gold resource potential, it proposes a new round of optimization and evaluation, including layered management models. Through the national industry-finance cooperation platform, financing support will be provided for gold mining projects under market-oriented and rule-of-law principles.

Lastly, the plan aims to foster a sound development environment by promoting self-regulatory frameworks, guiding enterprises toward standardized operations, enhancing industry monitoring, encouraging rational investment, and improving public services such as data collection, supply-demand matching, metrology and testing, standard development, and commercialization of technological achievements.