We may find new materials nearly everywhere, such as our clothes, tableware, vehicles, houses and workplaces; from many important projects, such as large airplane, high-speed railway, new-energy autos etc. to many important industries, such as tri-networks integration (telecom network, broadcast network and computer communication network), Internet of Things and energy saving and environmental protection, all of them require the breakthrough on and application of a series of new material technology.

"Both industry and agriculture need materials. New material industry is a basic and pillar industry and the breakthrough made in new materials is expected to trigger a new industrial revolution." Tang Jianmao, Director of Advisory Department of China Materials Research Society said that the new materials are the precondition for the revitalization and development of many industries and all productive processes should be supported by materials. Along with the technical progress as well as the rapid development of emerging industries, the demand for new materials in variety and quantity is greatly increased. The market prospect of new materials is considered to be optimistic.

Taking carbon material for instance, at the beginning of this century, carbon material has become the preferred high-performance materials for large-scale development and application all over the world. The traditional carbon materials are synthetic diamond and thermo-stable graphite material, while the most remarkable carbon materials in this century are carbon fiber composite material and graphene material. With many outstanding performances like high strength, high modulus, low specific gravity, high-temperature resistance, anti-fatigue, light conductive medium, easy machining, etc., the carbon fiber is gradually replacing the traditional materials and is widely applied into aerospace and military fields and is gradually extended to all aspects of national economy and daily life.

"Carbon fiber composite material is for high-end application, representing the overall level of technology and industrialization of one country and its primary application is in aerospace and other high-end fields. Its space for development will continue 20-30 years." Tang Jianmao said if this material is used for manufacturing airplane, the weight of an airplane will be reduced by 20-40 percent compared with airplane made of aluminum alloy. It has high energy efficiency. At present, 50 percent of Boeing 787 planes have used this kind of material and 62 percent of materials for a type of airplane of AIRBUS are used in this material.

The downstream of new material industry covers automobile, aeronautical facility, communication equipment, domestic appliances, IT, real estate, transportation and urban construction. With their rapid development, the demand for new materials is correspondingly huge. "Currently, the new material industry in China is in robust development. The production value of this industry accounts for 30 percents of GDP. It is expected that its growth rate will remain at 20 percent or above and it has broad space for development." Bao Yujun, President of China Industrial Cluster Research Institute, once said the new material industry in China would embrace its high-speed development during the "Twelfth Five-year Plan".

The system has just been established but the core technology needs to be developed.

For the new materials are associated with many related industries, all countries in the world attach great importance to the development of new materials but they adopt different development strategies and select different fields for preferred development. In the past decade, the global production value of material industry has been increasing at the rate of 30 percent annually. Now, micro-electronics, photoelectron, new energy and new chemical material have been the new material fields that are paid most positivity to research, have the rapidest development and are given favorable forecast for its prospect of application by investors.

In recent years, China also has paid more attention on the new materials. As for the supportive policy, the Chinese government has given great support in terms of input of scientific research funds, preparation of industrial planning, industrial policy and commercialization of scientific and technological achievements and the relatively complete industrial chain system for new materials was initially established. At present, China has a batch of core industries of new high-tech material in electronic information material, advanced metallic material, battery material, magnetic material, new polymers, advanced ceramic material and composite material.

However, related data show that most export products are resource-based or primary products; the raw mineral material consumed by per unit of GDP is 2-4 times more than that of the developed countries but the secondary utilization of resources is just a quarter or one third of that in the developed countries. In the import and export trade, the import amount of new materials is far more than that of export amount and the gap between them is enlarging.

"China is a major country of materials but not a great power of materials. The new material industry has not been fundamentally transformed into the technology- intensive industry from resource-intensive industry", said Tang Jianmao. Jiang Quan, Director of New Material Research Office of China Building Materials Academy said the market demand for new materials was not satisfied and some new products of high quality, high technology and high added value would still rely on import.

The capability for independent innovation is critical.

"We should strengthen resource optimization and reorganization to achieve the strategic upgrading of industrial structure through technical progress, to weed out backward and surplus production capacity of high investment, high consumption, high pollution and low economic benefit by merger and restructuring, to support the high technology projects of high performance and high added value and to support and develop a batch of leading enterprises that are of international level and high intensive level at upstream and downstream industrial chain, and strong ability in response." In the opinion of Tang Jianmao, the governmental departments should play a leading role in building the capacity of enterprises for independent innovation. They should improve the environment for the development of new material industry, encourage the development of the industrial model that integrates production, learning and research; meanwhile, the government should actively practice international cooperation, so as to learn advanced technology and managerial experience.

Some officials from Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said according to the planning, new material industry would prioritize function material of special metals, high-end structural metallic materials, advanced high polymer material, new-type inorganic nonmetallic materials, high-performance composite material and frontier new material. Meanwhile, some major engineering and major projects shall be launched to facilitate the integration of production, learning and research and to promote the upgrading and updating of materials.