The growth rate of the penultimate Chinese machinery industry is increasing

The economic growth rate has obviously slowed down, and the downward pressure has sharply increased.

The signs of improvement are showing up, and steady growth can still be expected.

The situation has forced transformation and upgrading, hoping for policy support.

This is the summary of the economic operation situation of the current machinery industry by Cai Weici, executive vice president of the China Machinery Industry Federation.

According to the statistics of China Machinery Industry Federation (hereinafter referred to as the Association), the national industrial growth rate was 11.0% from January to April 2012, and the machinery industry increased by 8.8% year-on-year. The machinery industry ranks first in terms of growth rate in 2010 in the 12 industrial sectors, ranking fifth in 2011, and falling to 10th in the first four months of this year (just above the petrochemical and power industries).

From January to April, the total industrial output value was 5463.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.13%, and the growth rate was a new low since 2009, which is 13 percentage points lower than the growth rate that had fallen sharply in 2011.

It is worth noting that the total profit realized in the first quarter of 2012 was 238.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.24%. The increase in profits has been uncommon for many years and is far below the unfavorable rate of increase in production and sales (around 12%) over the same period.

The decline in the growth of export earnings is also very clear. From January to April, the export value of mechanical industry exports increased by 14.73% year-on-year, which was a 14.5% decrease from the increase of 29.23% in the same period of last year.

From the analysis of specific product varieties, of the 119 main products, 74 productions increased year-on-year, accounting for 62%; 45 productions fell, accounting for 38%. The decline in production of so many products has been rare in recent years. This also reflects the downturn in the economic operation of the machinery industry at the beginning of this year.

In addition, the production and sales ratio of machinery products from January to April was 97.21%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.59 percentage points, indicating that the sales difficulties were more serious.

Many companies in the machinery sub-industry have this feeling that the market has clearly recovered in March, but there is still hesitation about whether this sign of improvement will continue.

Cai Weici said that according to statistics from the Association, despite the apparent recovery in the growth rate of the entire machinery industry in March, it is worrying that there was another downward trend in April. For example, in the first two months of 2012, the total output value grew at a rate of 11.62% year-on-year, from 13.27% in the first three months to 12.13% from January to April.

The lack of confidence is the most important factor leading to a slowdown in growth, which is the slowdown in demand.

From January to March of this year, the cumulative orders of key enterprises in the machinery industry decreased by 2.89% year-on-year, which is comparable to the increase of more than 20% in previous years. Among them, construction machinery, machine tools, trucks, power generation equipment (especially nuclear power and wind power equipment) are particularly difficult.

There is also a clear sign that the company is owed a serious amount of money. According to the statistics of the association, the current account receivables of enterprises have reached 2.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.88%. In the survey conducted by the association, the actual situation of accounts receivable is likely to be more serious than the increase in the book of “17.88%” of the National Bureau of Statistics.

Under the multiple pressures of slowing demand, declining prices, and rising costs, the profit margin of the main business of the machinery industry in the first three months of this year has dropped by 0.61 percentage points year-on-year.

Cai Weici believes that besides the aforementioned sluggish demand, downward price, and rising costs, he believes that the greatest danger is lack of confidence.

From an external point of view, the European debt crisis triggered by the change in political situation in Western Europe has been re-intensified and difficult to predict. From a domestic point of view, macroeconomic data in April was significantly worse than expected, which caused a greater psychological impact on the industry. Impact. Failure to respond quickly can potentially spread fears, slow down companies' investment, wait for a wait-and-see, and further plague the economic situation.

Cai Weici also said that as far as the machinery industry is concerned, growth has been too rapid in previous years, and it is normal for the growth rate to fall properly; as long as it is controlled at around 15%, there is no need to panic. Although it is difficult to make accurate predictions for future trends, we believe that as long as the state appropriately increases support for the growth of the real economy and prevents the spread of panic, normal development will be achieved in March, and double digits can be achieved throughout the year. increase.

“It is expected that the machinery industry will reach the bottom in the second quarter, but it cannot expect to recover quickly thereafter; it is estimated that the new platform will continue to grow for a long period of time on a new platform that has been significantly lower than in previous years. This year is expected to show an “early period”. The pattern of bottoming down, stabilizing or slightly recovering from the late lows; the double digit growth is still expected in the whole year, ie, the growth rate of production and sales is expected to be around 18%; the profit growth is expected to be around 12%; the export growth is expected to be 15 %about."

Although the current situation is not clear, the increase in the production and sales growth of the automotive industry with the largest weight in the machinery industry should be regarded as a precursor to the stabilization of the situation in the economic operation of the machinery industry. For example, from January to February, the year-on-year growth rate of automobile production and sales was 4.93% and -5.96% respectively. From January to March, these two figures were changed to -1.83% and -3.40%. By January to April, the growth rate of output has turned positive. At 0.47%, the sales growth rate became -1.33%. In April, it rose to 7.81% and 5.19%.

In addition, despite the monthly calculation, the year-on-year growth rate in April has declined. However, if the rest days are deducted and the effective working days are calculated every month, the major economic indicators have shown a steady upward trend this year. Therefore, it is not appropriate to be overly pessimistic because the monthly growth in April has once again seen a downward trend.

Moreover, the year-on-year growth of "finished product" funds in machinery industry "inventory" and "inventory" has continued to accelerate since the fourth quarter of last year, which seems to indicate that the company's inventory backlog situation is decreasing; at the same time, the year-on-year growth of finished product funds in inventory has decreased. Faster, which proves that the stock of raw materials has risen, and this shows that the company is covering up raw materials, which reflects the company's expectations for the future market prospects.

It should be noted that since the growth curve of the machinery industry in 2011 was “high before and after low” throughout the year, such as construction machinery, machine tools, and power generation equipment, the first few months of 2011 were high-speed, even ultra-high-speed growth. Comparing the influence of the base, the first half year-on-year deceleration of the growth rate was relatively reasonable. However, because of this, after entering the second half of the year, it is relatively easy for the growth rate to stop rising.

More importantly, endogenous strained efforts in the industry are being strengthened. It can be said that the severe situation has increased the sense of crisis in the machinery companies. Although the total demand growth has slowed down in recent years, the demand structure has been continuously upgraded, thus providing new opportunities for the development of the machinery industry.

It is under the action of the force-driven mechanism that many excellent companies are accelerating their upgrading to the high-end, especially in key areas such as R&D investment and construction of test conditions, basic parts, basic processes, and localization of basic materials, and international research. In terms of market development and other aspects, initiative and self-consciousness have increased significantly.

In addition, the more serious industries have declined, the more they have expanded their efforts to expand the international market and expand exports. For example, in the construction machinery industry, the output value of the construction machinery industry from January to April increased by only 3.79% year-on-year, but the export earnings from foreign exchange increased by 30.52% year-on-year; the output value of the automobile industry increased by only 10.83% year-on-year, but the export earnings from foreign exchange increased by 17.37% year-on-year; heavy mining machinery Although the output value increased only 14.59% year-on-year, but exports increased by 30.55% over the same period; the machine tool industry needs orders fell sharply this year, but the export growth rate reached 23.07% year-on-year.

These changes show that the invisible hand of the market to the structural adjustment of the machinery industry is showing its power. Although these efforts may not have an immediate effect on steady growth this year in the short term, in the long run, deepening market-oriented reforms and revitalizing the inherent dynamism of enterprises will certainly help the situation gradually improve.

Cai Weici stressed that in the future, the machinery industry should emphasize the main attack direction of “high-end, high-quality” in structural adjustment and upgrading. The so-called "high-end attack" has three connotations: one is to attack high-tech products; the other is to pursue high-quality traditional products; and the third is to focus on the heightening of the industrial structure - emphasis on the development of modern manufacturing services.

He pointed out that the development of high-end equipment, first, we must pay attention to research and innovation, and second, we must attach great importance to quality, we must have strong quality control capabilities; to enable users to establish a sense of trust in domestic high-end equipment. This is often more difficult than technological innovation and breakthroughs and must be highly valued by the entire industry.

The "base" is to solidify several fundamental bottlenecks in the development of high-end equipment: machining machines, measurement and control systems, key components, and special high-quality materials; and vigorously improving the basic level of technology such as casting, forging, welding, and heat treatment.

Cai Weici said: "To lay a solid foundation must not only strive for state support, but also agglomerate industry consensus and form a solid social atmosphere and joint force."