Two major opportunities and two challenges in the mold industry

“The mold steel industry must study and implement the Party's spirit of the 18th National Congress of the People's Republic of China, change the way, optimize the structure, raise the quality, increase the benefits, and realize innovation-driven development strategies.” A few days ago, the International Model Association Secretary-General Luo Baihui said in an interview with reporters: "Excellent structure, quality, efficiency, innovation-driven new development" is the most effective way for the mold steel industry to achieve healthy development.

World economic growth will be in a period of long downturns and structural adjustments. It is difficult to eliminate unstable and uncertain factors. Luo Baihui believes that relying on expanding exports to stimulate economic growth has been unsustainable. The domestic economy is entering a transition period from high-speed growth to medium-speed growth, from extensive development to intensive development, from the emphasis on quantitative growth to more emphasis on development quality and efficiency, and more balanced, coordinated, and sustainable development.

"China's die steel companies face two major opportunities and two major challenges." Luo Baihui pointed out two major opportunities. First, in the next decade or so, China must basically realize industrialization. The level of informatization has been greatly improved, the quality of urbanization has been significantly improved, and the effectiveness of agricultural modernization has been remarkable. And the country vigorously promotes the opportunities brought by the strategic emerging industries to the innovation and development of China's mold steel enterprises. The second is the modernization of China's mold steel enterprises and the enhancement of their soft power in recent years, which has brought new opportunities to expand the international market, especially to enter the markets of developing countries, and to implement international operations. The special-purpose nature of special steels for molds determines the path to development that must be pursued in order to become stronger and bigger and to be specialized in international markets.

At present, the use of die steel in the downstream automotive, home appliances, medical devices, LED, power, machinery and Other industries, the growth rate has slowed down significantly. However, the recently issued "12th Five-Year Development Plan for High-end Equipment Manufacturing Industry" has clearly defined the key directions for the development of high-end equipment manufacturing: aviation equipment, satellites and applications, rail transportation equipment, marine engineering equipment, and intelligent manufacturing equipment are mold steels. Demand has provided new highlights and puts higher demands on product quality. At the same time, the Party’s 18th National Congress clearly stated that it is necessary to fully build a well-to-do society by 2020, and the GDP per capita and the per capita income of urban and rural residents should double that of 2010. All of these have brought new markets to the mold steel industry, which has provided mold steel companies with a wide range of applications.

Two major challenges, first, whether the joint reorganization of enterprises can truly increase the efficiency of the allocation of production factor resources (talents, funds, advanced equipment), and meet the challenges of international market competition. The second is whether the implementation of green manufacturing in the face of resource and environmental constraints will challenge the construction of an ecologically-civilized factory.

Luo Baihui said that at present, China's mold steel industry is facing problems such as unreasonable regional distribution, low industrial concentration, and low specialization projects. The shortage of technical capabilities, management capabilities, operational capabilities, and market development capabilities has become a "bottleneck" restricting and influencing the upgrading of mold steel industry and technological progress. In addition, the investment capacity of mold steel companies is limited, and there is a relative lack of national policy support. There is a big gap between the overall level of China's mold steel industry and the international advanced level.

It is understood that in 2012 China's mold steel bar production line put into operation 6 new, a total of 630 million tons of new capacity, half of the production capacity to be released, half of dissatisfaction in the state of scheduling. This shows that. The mold steel industry has seen a situation of concentrated production capacity. In response, Su Jiangwu, editorial board member of the “Global Mold Parts Encyclopedia”, believes: “In this case, even if the mold steel market has improved, it is difficult for companies to achieve good results.”

The data show that in 2012, the profits of large-scale steel mold companies fell drastically. From January to September, total sales profit was 470 million yuan, 97% lower than last year; the profit rate was only 0.87%. In September, 31 leading companies suffered losses of 1.33 billion yuan, 24 loss-making enterprises, and a loss of 77%, up 48% from August and 32% from September last year.

It can be seen that the structural adjustment of the mold steel industry still has a long way to go.

“At present, the minimum period for the demand for steel products has passed, but it does not mean that the industry has passed through the most difficult period.” Deputy Secretary-General Liu Chengyang of the Shenzhen Die & Mould Technology Society believes that the world economic situation is grim in 2013 and domestic macroeconomic growth The slowdown, the real estate control policy will not relax, and the combined effect of the new production capacity of the industry waiting to be released will further complicate the situation in the coming year and increase the number of uncertainties.

“The overall oversupply situation of the mold steel industry is further aggravated. In 2013, it will be more difficult than in 2012, and excess production capacity will be forced to be eliminated.” Liu Chengyang judged, “In fact, downstream demand for excellent mold steel products has gradually declined. ”

The major downstream industries of mold steel are machinery, automobiles, railways, and shipping. From January to September, the production and sales of automobiles in China were 14.1312 million vehicles and 14.0923 million vehicles, respectively, an increase of 4.98% and 3.37% year-on-year respectively. Among them, 11.6671 million passenger vehicles and 11.26916 million vehicles were sold and sold, which was an increase of 8.41% and 6.94% year-on-year. The annual production of 2012 is expected to be 18.84 million, an increase of 2.3% year-on-year. From January to September, the total output value of China's machinery industry was 13.3 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.9 percent year-on-year. The total output value of 2012 is expected to be 17.7 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.9 percent year-on-year. Although the total output value of automobile production and machinery industry has increased slightly, in fact, the production and sales of domestic trucks have dropped by 6.40% and 8.26% year-on-year, and the production and sales of heavy trucks have dropped by 30.82% and 30.91% respectively. Although the largest drop in the use of steel is the largest heavy-duty trucks, due to the high strength and light weight of auto steel used in recent years and the increase in automobile production and sales, the number of steel used for automobile molds in 2012 was still at a high level compared with last year.

"In the face of two major opportunities and two major challenges, companies must adjust their development strategies by advancing with the long-term sustainable development and keep pace with the times, innovate in corporate management, technology, products and business models, and expand their foothold in development. The scale of production capacity has shifted to improving the quality and efficiency of development.” Luo Baihui pointed out that both old and new enterprises should recognize the risk of further expansion of production capacity, shift investment direction to improve quality, reduce consumption, improve environmental protection, and develop a recycling economy. And extend the industrial value chain up.

At present, China's mold steel production is generally adapted to the national economy in terms of quantity, and can produce a large number of high-quality special steels that can cover all military engineering models. However, domestic high-end products still cannot fully meet the needs of the domestic market in terms of quality and quantity (alloy steel ratio is only 6.31%, stainless steel ratio is only 1.55%), and there is still a considerable amount of imports (about 3 million tons of imported alloy steel annually). Some high-end products can not meet the needs of domestic industry development and major projects, core parts and materials, but off, aircraft landing gear, high-speed train axles, bearings and other anti-fatigue high-strength steel, nuclear power station with high temperature, anti-radiation stainless heat-resistant steel pipe, gas turbine The turbofan engine's high-temperature alloy blades and other materials cannot be fully domesticated at present. In this regard, Luo Baihui pointed out that at present, we must particularly grasp the direction of product innovation. The first is to serve the requirements of innovation and upgrading of traditional users, and to develop new specifications for new steel products. Second is to track the development of strategic emerging industries, innovate new varieties and new materials, and create new growth points for benefits.

At present, most mold steel enterprises in China are faced with the arduous task of industrial upgrading and product structure adjustment. Mold steel companies should combine local regional resources, market resources, and their own characteristics, and persist in eliminating the backwardness, increasing the degree of specialization projects, and increasing the concentration of dominant species, so as to lay a foundation for the rational distribution of the steel mold industry, professional division of labor, and industrial intensive.

“As the enterprise itself, what we need to do is to further accelerate the pace of structural adjustment and industrial upgrading, increase the resources optimization and reorganization and the training of personnel and scientific and technological innovation teams, actively maintain fair competition in the industry, and actively seek and build upstream and downstream industries. The strategic alliances hold warmth, mutual promotion, honor and disgrace, promote industrial resilience, improve the ability to resist market risks and market resilience, and truly turn enterprises into economic entities that meet the development requirements of the times and meet the requirements of economic development. Develop new ways to achieve its own sustainable development.” Su Jiangwu said.