China's machine tool product exports are expected to reach 15%

Although in the first half of this year, China's machine tool products were affected by the economic situation and led to a decrease in the number of orders, with the continuous recovery of the world economy, China's machine tool product exports are expected to reach 15%.

The machine tool is a machine that processes metal blanks into machine parts. It is a machine that manufactures machinery and is a "working machine" for equipment manufacturing. The industrial upgrading of various sub-sectors in the equipment manufacturing industry in China is inseparable from the support of the machine tool industry. Machine tools are the basic production methods of the equipment industry. The machine tool industry is a basic industry and a strategic industry related to national economy and people's livelihood, national defense construction, and is closely watched by all parties in the world.

China's machine tools have entered the world

Under the guidance of the country's correct principles and policies, China's machine tool industry has entered the first square of the world.

In 2012, China’s metal processing machine tool consumption amounted to US$38.28 billion, of which, Jinche Machine Tool’s consumption amounted to US$27.38 billion, and forming machine tool consumption amounted to US$10.9 billion; domestically-made metal processing machine tool’s sales value reached US$27.36 billion, of which, Jinche Machine Tool sales value was 180.7. Billion dollars, the sales value of forming machine tools was 18.07 billion US dollars.

Statistics show that in 2012, the world's 28 major machine tool producing countries and regions produced a value of 93.2 billion U.S. dollars, China accounted for about 30%, ranking first, and the consumption of metal processing machine tools in China accounted for 45% of the global market, ranking the world for 11 consecutive years. The first largest consumer nation has become the largest producer for four consecutive years. In spite of this, China's machine tool industry still has many problems, such as the lack of share in the high-end market and the overall brand image to be improved. It can be said that China's machine tool industry is big but not strong.

Negative growth in imports of machine tool products intensified

In the first quarter of 2013, the export value of China's machine tool products continued the growth trend in 2012, but the negative growth of imports increased, the decline was significant, and the trade deficit was further reduced.

Under the background of the global economic downturn, the foreign trade of China's machine tool products has maintained a relatively stable growth. According to customs statistics, in 2012, the export value of China's machine tool products was 3.917 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 9.82%, and the total import value was 14.726 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 0.05%.

In the first quarter of this year, the export value of China's machine tool products was 960 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 8.52% year-on-year, basically continuing the trend of last year. The amount of imports was 2.9 billion U.S. dollars, which fell sharply and decreased by nearly 15% year-on-year.

The trade deficit has also dropped from 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2012 to 1.96 billion U.S. dollars, and the trade deficit has contracted more significantly.

Machine tool export growth has picked up

The growth in the export value of machine tools was mainly due to the increase in export prices; the growth rate of exports recovered slightly from the situation in the second half of 2012.

According to customs statistics, the export situation in the first half of 2012 was relatively good and the export growth was 20% year-on-year, indicating that the order volume in 2011 was relatively large; however, the growth rate of machine tool exports slowed down significantly since June 2012. It can be seen that Affected by the economic situation, international orders for machine tools decreased significantly in 2012. In the first quarter of 2013, the overall situation continued to continue in the second half of 2012. The increase was slightly but not significant. It can be seen that the impact of the economic situation will continue for some time.

Decrease in CNC machine tools year-on-year

The metal processing machine tool is the main part of China's machine tool export, the numerical control machine tool decreases compared to the same period, the processing center and the combined machine tool increase obviously.

In the first quarter of 2013, the export value of metal processing machine tools was US$680 million, accounting for 70.6% of total machine tool exports. The export value of metal processing machines increased by 7.65% year-on-year, which was lower than the overall export growth rate of machine tools. Among them, the export of CNC machine tools was US$160 million, a year-on-year decrease of 12.36%, which was the main factor causing the increase in machine tool exports to be inconspicuous. The increase in the export of machining centers and combined machine tools was significant at 28.5% and 65.7%, respectively.

The overall market structure is stable, and it continues to maintain the “four-fourty-two” distribution. With the promotion of the manufacturing return policy, the US market exports have increased significantly;

From the perspective of export markets, in the first quarter of 2013, China’s major machine tool export markets remained the markets of Asia and Europe and the United States, each accounting for about 40% of the export value; the remaining two were occupied by markets such as Latin America and Africa. Among them, the export growth in Africa and North America continued the rapid growth in 2012, with an increase of 22.1% and 32.57% respectively.

In the first quarter of 2013, the growth rate of the United States market was relatively fast, with a growth rate of 43.09%, which was an increase from the 32.6% growth rate in 2012. The reason is that due to the return of U.S. manufacturing to its home country, the demand for its domestic machine tools has increased substantially. In addition, the growth rates of Russia, Vietnam, and Mexico all exceeded the average growth rate.

General trade is the main mode of trade

The export trade of China’s machine tools is based on general trade; the exports of Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, and Guangdong account for 60% of the national machine tool exports.

Judging from the trade pattern, in the first quarter of this year, general trade was the main trading method for machine tool exports, accounting for 81.8%, up 6.88% year-on-year; followed by processing trade, accounting for 12.69%, up 14.58% year-on-year.

The export of machine tools is mainly concentrated in Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang and Guangdong. Among them, Shandong's exports grew rapidly in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 31.3% over the same period last year. Zhejiang has become China's second largest machine tool export base. In addition, the northeast old industrial base and the machine tool industry in the Midwest are gradually forming industrial clusters centered on leading enterprises.

The number of machine tool imports dropped significantly

In the first quarter, the import volume of China's machine tool products dropped significantly, and the import price was basically the same as that of the same period of last year. In the first quarter of 2013, China imported a total of about 25,000 machine tools, a year-on-year decrease of 16%; the import amount was US$2.9 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 14.8%; and the import unit price was US$117,000 per unit, an increase of 1.7% over the same period of last year.

China's machine tool imports are mainly high-end products, and the average import price is 475 times of the average export price. China's non-metal processing machine tool manufacturing level is higher, the import volume is smaller; the vast majority of China's imported machine tools for metal processing machine tools, metallurgical machine tool imports in the first quarter of 2013 was 2.7 billion US dollars, accounting for 93% of the total imports of machine tool products . The average unit price of imported machine tools is US$117,000, which is 275 times the average unit price of exports; the average unit price of imported metal processing machine tools is as much as US$140,000, while the average price of domestic metal cutting machine tools exported is only US$412.

This reflects that domestic high-end products have both technical defects and industrialization. They are still unable to meet the requirements of users in terms of product quality, technical indicators, and user services. China is currently a big country of machine tools, but it is far from the powerhouse of machine tools. There is still a big gap between the goals.

The tension between China and Japan led to a sharp drop in the number of imported Japanese machine tools and a change in market structure. From the import market and country perspective, the structure of China's machine tool import market is still dominated by Asia and Europe, with imports accounting for nearly 95% of the total. However, the market structure has been dominated by Asia, which accounted for more than 60% of the past, and it has become equal to Europe and Asia.

As Japan continues to provoke a provocation in Diaoyu Island in China, the Sino-Japanese relations are tense, resulting in a more serious impact on the bilateral trade of high-end products such as machine tools. In the first quarter of this year, China’s machine tool products imported from Japan decreased by 35% year-on-year. As China's largest importer of machine tools, Japan accounted for 40% of its share in 2012. The sharp drop in its trade volume directly led to changes in the market structure.

In 2013, machine tools imported from Germany, the United States, and other markets grew significantly. To a certain extent, they were also used as substitutes for Japanese machine tools. However, due to their relatively high prices, they could not completely compensate for the vacancy in the Japanese market. The sharp decrease in the Japanese market is also the main reason that the total import volume of China's machine tools has fallen by a large margin compared with the same period of last year.

Accelerating the development of high-end machine tool market

At present, the mid- to high-end CNC machine tools have little difference from the machine tool structure and overall parameters of Chinese and foreign companies, and the homogenization competition is fierce.

Product management should take the market as the starting point, serve the target customers, and focus on the development of medium-to-high-end CNC machine tools such as CNC cars, Lijia, Sujia, Longmen, CNC gongs, and CNC grinders with large market capacity and strong development potential. The structure is novel and the precision index is superb.

To sort out existing products of the company, overall plan the spectrum of machine tools, make great efforts to adjust the product structure, and do not pursue large and complete product lines. We must analyze in depth the profitability of major products and focus on the development of high-end CNC products with good economies of scale and profitability. Eliminating unprofitable products and implementing quality projects.

CNC machine tool is an integrated machine tool integrating electronic information technology and traditional machine tool technology. It integrates mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatic engineering disciplines and is a systematic project. Product design should implement the collaborative design of production, supply, and sales to achieve a reasonable design to control the cost of the machine tool.

Any product must have a high level of product quality and should have advanced process standards. The production process runs through all aspects of production, and the process documentation ensures that the production activities are carried out in an orderly manner and achieves the goals of improving product quality, reducing production preparation, reducing costs, and increasing labor productivity. Therefore, for enterprises, to have a good product quality, process assurance is a real content.

Through years of development, domestic machine tool companies have mastered the basic mechanical structure of CNC machine tools, and can initially predict that the major mechanical structures of CNC machine tools will not undergo major changes in the next 10 to 20 years. In the future, CNC machine tools will develop with high precision and efficiency.

The development of machine tools is first of all to stabilize the quality of stand-alone products and improve quality. Compared with the international advanced level, China's machine tools still have a big gap in processing accuracy, reliability, efficiency, automation, intelligence and environmental protection. The overall deficiencies focus on basic manufacturing levels, machine tool accuracy and stability, machine tool mean time between failures, and machine tool applications.

Carefully manufacturing, implementation of total quality management, strict compliance with process specifications, implementation of total quality management. Selecting outsourced parts and outsourcing parts manufacturers, qualified raw materials are the material basis for producing quality products. The machine tool must use high-performance, high-reliability CNC systems, servo drives, supporting functional components, electrical components, and detection components to ensure the reliability of machine tools and strengthen the management of purchased parts, so that the product quality is within a controllable range.

Any product can only make up for the design flaws, improve the production process line, and summarize the experience in practical applications, and constantly improve the product's internal quality. The first symbolic goal of the development of the machine tool industry during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period was to make breakthroughs in providing equipment and services in key manufacturing industries. The manufacture of aerospace, marine, automotive and power generation equipment is the most important service area in the machine tool industry. It is a typical high-end market segment.

Imports and exports will increase by 15% this year

At present, the development of China's machine tool industry continues to work hard to solve the problems of large but not strong hosts, lagging development of numerical control systems and functional components, large gaps in key technology of high-end CNC machine tools, low product quality stability, and poor overall economic efficiency of the industry. Fostering core competencies, independent innovation, quantitative integration, brand building, and high-quality services have been elevated to strategic heights. It strives to achieve a series of mid-to-long-term goals such as the transition from a machine tool manufacturing country to a machine tool country, and the realization of a domestically-leading mid-to-high-end CNC machine tool in the domestic market through 10 to 15 years.

The first half of 2013 is expected to be affected by the economic situation and the decline in orders this year. However, with the continuous recovery of the world economy, China's machine tool product exports are expected to increase by 15%.