A made-in-China triumph: China declares it can make ball pen head
Premier Li Keqiang had long lamented that China produced more than half the world’s steel but still had to import high grade metal to make decent pens
Despite producing some of the world’s most spectacular infrastructure and sending astronauts into space, China has finally overcome a technological obstacle that has vexed Premier Li Keqiang: the ability to produce a decent ballpoint pen using domestically-made materials and components.
Li has long said that the fact China could not make the high-grade steel and precision machinery required to make the key component of the pens – the metal ball and its casing – reflected badly on Chinese manufacturing in general, state media reported.
Now, after five years of trial and error, Taiyuan Iron and Steel, one of the country’s biggest stainless steelmakers, has worked out the appropriate mix of alloys for high-performance stainless steel and to extrude it into a wire feedstock just 2.3mm thick.
In January last year, Li lamented that China still relied heavily on imported high-grade steel even though it produced more than half of world’s crude iron and steel.
This shortfall in capability showed that China’s manufacturing was weak and in dire need of upgrading, he added.
In a programme that aired last week on Shanxi Satellite Television, Beifa Group, one of China’s largest makers of ballpoint pens based in Ningbo, Zhejiang province said it had started buying stainless steel from Taiyuan Iron and Steel and expected it to completely replace imported steel in the next two years.
