1. Interpretation of the economic performance of the industry in the first quarter of 2019
my country’s economic performance at the beginning of this year presents four major characteristics:
1. Domestic demand is rising steadily;
2. Structural optimization continues;
3. Employment prices are generally stable;
4. Production is expected to be positive.
Wei Jie, a professor at Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, mentioned in "Analysis of China's Latest Macroeconomic Trends and Environment": As China's total GDP base increases, the growth rate will continue to decline. This year's decline in growth rate is not the cause of the economic recession, but an inevitable process of China's economic development.
Judging from the data, GDP growth in the first quarter was 6.4%, which is generally considered better than expected. It can be said that whether it is viewed from the perspective of macroeconomic fundamentals or the ability of enterprises to resist risks, it is the result of the implementation of active fiscal policies and prudent monetary policies. Among them, building sanitary ceramics as a building materials industry, overall The economic operating status has also tended to be stable.
According to the report, Guangdong Province’s architectural ceramic output in 2018 was 2.26 billion square meters, a year-on-year increase of 1.3%; from January to March 2019, the province’s ceramic tile output was 351.546 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 0.03%; Although there is a slight negative growth in output, the overall economic performance of the industry has not been greatly affected by the shadow of the "industry winter" and "ceramic factory closures". On the contrary, total profits have increased significantly.
According to the newly released economic operation data of the construction and sanitary ceramics industry in the first quarter of 2019, the main business revenue of the construction and sanitary ceramics industry accumulated 81.125 billion yuan, an increase of 9.5% over the same period last year. Total profits totaled 4.588 billion yuan, an increase of 23.88% over the same period last year. In the first quarter, the industry's operating income and total profit increased, indicating that ceramic companies' ability to respond to market changes is gradually improving, and the company's development is gradually entering a sound development track of improving quality and efficiency.
Miao Bin, executive vice president of the China Building and Sanitary Ceramics Association, interpreted the development trend and dilemma of the ceramic industry: the total profit of the ceramic industry in the first quarter increased by 23.88% year-on-year.my country's ceramic industry is going from "the worst since the new century" It has emerged from the gloom of "one year", but at the same time, the crisis that restricts development has not been lifted, and the industry is still facing huge operating pressure.
2. Interpretation of the industry’s export trade situation in the first quarter of 2019
The export trade situation of the construction and sanitary ceramics industry in 2018 is relatively optimistic. Take Guangdong Province as an example - in 2018, the province's ceramic exports were generally stable and prices increased. According to Guangzhou Customs statistics, the province's ceramic exports in 2018 were 12.357 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 4.3%; however, the export volume reached US$8.69 billion, a year-on-year increase of 3.1%.
It is understood that from January to March 2019, the export situation of Guangdong ceramic products was relatively severe, with product export volume and export value declining rapidly. Among them, the United States has become the protagonist of my country's ceramic export trade. According to statistics, from January to October 2018, China exported 52.99 million square meters of ceramic tiles to the United States, with a total value of US$507 million. It can be seen that the export of my country's ceramic industry How can you become a protagonist when you don’t account for a large share of the trade? Let’s take a look at how it adds drama to itself:
1. The United States conducts a “bilateral” investigation into Chinese ceramic tiles
On May 1, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the filing of a "double counterfeiting" investigation into imported ceramic tiles originating from China and determined the investigation progress schedule. If the ITC determines that there are reasonable indications that significant harm was caused by ceramic tiles imported from China, the investigation will continue. The U.S. Department of Commerce will announce a preliminary anti-subsidy ruling on July 8 and make a preliminary anti-dumping ruling on September 18.
2. The United States imposes tariffs on goods from China to 25%
On May 10, Beijing time, the United States officially implemented additional tariffs, exporting US$200 billion to China.Tariffs on U.S. products were raised from 10% to 25%. In mid-May, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced on its official website that it planned to increase the tariff rate to 25% on the remaining 325 billion U.S. dollars of Chinese goods not included in the previous tariff list, including a total of 3,805 products including sanitary ware.
Yin Hong, secretary-general of the Foshan Ceramics Industry Association of Guangdong Province and a famous doctor in the industry, expressed his views on this: China's ceramics industry is not an export-dependent industry. The share of the entire export volume, that is, the annual It accounts for about 10% of the total output, and at its peak period, ceramic tiles exported to the United States accounted for 1% of the annual output. Therefore, no matter what the relationship between China and the United States is, there is no need to mess up the situation, or it will not cause a devastating blow to our country's ceramic tile industry.
However, with the rapid rise of the ceramic industry in Southeast Asia and India, the world ceramic industry has entered a new era, and a new global industrial pattern is taking shape. How Chinese ceramics can achieve global integration in the turbulent new situation of the world's ceramic industry is an urgent issue.
3. Interpretation of national economic and fiscal policies in 2019
In order to guide the economic work in 2019, strengthen confidence and deepen understanding for the Chinese economy to break through the situation and move towards high-quality development, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has made specific arrangements for the economic work in 2019, including relevant industry development Economic and fiscal policies are roughly as follows:
1. In 2019, the central economic work put forward the eight-character policy of “consolidating, strengthening, improving, and smoothing”
Consolidate the results of "three cuts, one reduction and one supplement", including three tasks: to accelerate the clearance of more overcapacity industries, reduce various business costs for the whole society, and increase Efforts will be made to make up for shortcomings in areas such as infrastructure.
Enhance the vitality of micro entities, give full play to the subjective initiative of enterprises and entrepreneurs, establish fair, open and transparent market rules and a legalized business environment, promote positive incentives and survival of the fittest, and develop more Quality enterprise.
Improve the level of the industrial chain, focus on using technological innovation and scale effects to form new competitive advantages, and cultivate and develop new industrial clusters.
Smooth the national economic cycle, accelerate the construction of a unified, open, and orderly competitive modern market system, improve the ability of the financial system to serve the real economy, form a domestic market and production entities, and promote economic growth and employment Expansion, financial and real economic virtuous cycle.
2. The seven key tasks of economic work strongly support the development of manufacturing industry
Mentioned in this year’s seven key tasks of economic work: “promoting high-quality development of manufacturing” and “unswervingly building a manufacturing power”, highlighting the country’s unswerving determination to develop manufacturing and attitude. Increase support for the financing of private enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, increase support for innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises, strengthen the protection and application of intellectual property rights, implement larger-scale tax reductions, fee reductions, and reduce business costs, all of which are directed towards the More and stronger support for the real economy, especially the manufacturing industry.
3. Active fiscal policy reduces corporate taxes and fees:
The most exciting aspect of this year’s fiscal policy is undoubtedly the reduction of corporate taxes, among which small and micro businesses are almost exempt from value-added tax. The four main points of this year’s tax reduction include: reducing the original 16% tax rate for manufacturing to 13%; reducing the value-added tax for transportation and construction to 9%; the 6% value-added tax remains unchanged, but can be deducted by increasing Ways to achieve tax reduction; the VAT threshold for small and micro enterprises has been increased from 30,000 to 100,000. Enterprises with monthly profits of less than 100,000 and annual turnover of less than 1.2 million will no longer pay VAT. As a result, the total value-added tax reduction this year may be around 1.5 trillion, which is definitely good news for the development of ceramic enterprises.
4. Vigorously promote environmental protection and accelerate technological progress and development:
In terms of environmental protection, a series of national environmental protection policies and standards have been introduced one after another, which will not be listed here. It is very obvious that the pressure of environmental protection has come to the top of ceramic production. For example, the most discussed issue in the industry is "should the coal-to-gas switch be a one-size-fits-all solution?" This also forces ceramic companies toIn this regard, we need to continuously improve environmental awareness and reform and innovate technology.
In the context of accelerating the national development strategy of "Made in China 2025", scientific and technological progress is changing with each passing day, the pace of innovation of enterprise production technology and equipment is accelerating, the gap with the world's advanced level is gradually narrowing, and the production process is iterating It is also more urgent to promote the update and iteration of technology and equipment. The integration of industrialization, informatization and intelligence is deeply affecting industrial change.
So in an environment where the country is vigorously promoting environmental protection and accelerating scientific and technological progress, the new model that combines "green production" with "intelligent manufacturing" has become the main theme of the current development of the ceramic industry.
◆◆◆
Driven by the reduction in market demand and channel fission, the industry reshuffle is still going on, the industrial concentration will be further increased, the polarization of enterprises will continue to intensify, and the market will quickly enter the survival of the fittest stage. At the same time, with the continuous advancement and implementation of green environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction policies, the pace of corporate transformation and upgrading has been further accelerated, the transformation of development methods has been further deepened, and environmental awareness and innovation awareness have been further enhanced. In fact, the rise of trade protectionism, rising costs, environmental protection transformation, innovation and development, etc. are all exam syllabuses for ceramic companies to experience and upgrade. We should discover more of their positive sides, which is important for the entire ceramic industry. Development is both a challenge and an opportunity.
The construction and sanitary ceramics industry has bid farewell to the rough development era that has long been driven by market demand, and has gradually transformed into a high-quality development stage of maturity, standardization, green manufacturing, and intelligent manufacturing.
——Miao Bin
Reference materials:
"Analysis of China’s Latest Macroeconomic Trends and Environment"
"Economic Operation of the Ceramic Industry in Guangdong Province"
