Yang Honghui
The sudden outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia in 2020 has had a significant impact on social economy and public life, greatly changing the way people travel. In a relatively short period of time, the demand for bicycles and E-bikes has increased greatly, and the market demand for tire products has been synchronized. This is the information that China Rubber Journal got from the recently concluded meeting of the General Secretaries of China Rubber Industry Association.
According to Chen Zhihai, Secretary General of Cycle Tire Branch of China Rubber Industry Association, although affected by the epidemic situation, the production and operation of cycle tire industry in the first quarter of 2020 was at a standstill and semi standstill, and the main economic operation indexes of the industry dropped sharply; however, since the second quarter, the overall operation of the industry has gradually improved, the third quarter was basically in full load operation, and after the fourth quarter, it still has maintained a relatively fast operation speed.
According to the statistics of CRIA Cycle Tire Branch, from January to November 2020, the industrial output value of key member enterprises increased by 8.36% year-on-year (the same below), the sales revenue increased by 6.16%, the export delivery value increased by 2.45%, and the profit increased by 47.0%. From January to November, the output of bicycle tire increased by 15.5%, e-bike tire increased by 18.2%, motorcycle tire decreased by 0.5%, and comprehensive inner tube decreased by 5.2%.
According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs, from January to November 2020, the total export volume of cycle tire products was 321,000 tons, an increase of 3.37%; the total export value was 860 million US dollars, an increase of 3.65%.
Chen Zhihai told China Rubber Journal that the production and sales growth and profit growth of bicycle tires and e-bike tires were relatively large; the export growth of motorcycle tires in the second half of the year was relatively large, which made up for the decline of the domestic market; at the same time, the leading enterprises played a more and more important role in driving and the industry concentration increased rapidly.
According to Chen Zhihai's analysis, the economic operation of the tire industry can grow against the trend under the epidemic situation, mainly due to the following factors. First, the industry's resumption of work and production and the prevention and control of the epidemic situation were carried out early and carefully, and effective measures were taken to seize the opportunity of the rapid increase of market demand at home and abroad. Second, after the adjustment of industrial structure since the 13th five-year plan, especially with the breakthrough of automation and intelligent upgrading and enterprise environmental protection governance, the bottleneck of industry development is being solved, and the per capita production efficiency of some key enterprises in tire building, curing and other processes has achieved "multiple-level" improvement. When the market opportunity comes, the advantages of these advanced equipment and technologies have been fully reflected and brought into play. Third, after a hundred years of development, it has formed a relatively complete up & downstream industry chain. The sufficient supply of main raw and auxiliary materials, the remarkable effect of domestic epidemic prevention and control, the smooth logistics and transportation, and the return of social life provide a good external environment for the stable development of the production and operation of this industry.
Chen Zhihai believes that the operation of cycle tire industry is still expected to maintain a rapid growth in 2021. At present, the global COVID-19 is on the rise. The situation of epidemic prevention and control in China is still grim and complicated. In this context, people are more likely to choose bicycles or e-bikes as short distance travel tools, and fitness activities are more likely to move from indoor gyms to outdoor fields, which means that the domestic and international market demand for bicycle tires and e-bike tires will remain strong at least this year, and the demand for motorcycle tires in developing countries will also maintain a steady growth.
Chen Zhihai said that at this stage, the global cycle tire products are basically produced in China, India, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries. Although the impact of the epidemic on cycle tire industry in South Asia and Southeast Asia is not too great, it is difficult for cycle tire production capacity to achieve rapid expansion in the short term due to the constraints of the upstream industrial chain supporting and capital investment capacity in the region. Therefore, for some countries that basically rely on imports of cycle tires and have imposed restrictions on the import of cycle tires from China in the past, it is possible to temporarily relax the restrictions for practical reasons. He believes that under the comprehensive effect of various factors, China's cycle tire industry is expected to continue to maintain the development momentum of prosperous production and marketing in the future. As long as the industry enterprises pay close attention to the domestic epidemic prevention and control situation and the development trend of upstream and downstream industries, unremittingly implement the internal epidemic prevention measures and formulate the relevant risk prevention plan, the bicycle tire industry is expected to continue to maintain a rapid development in 2021 and win a good start for the development of the industry in the 14th five-year plan.
At the same time, Chen Zhihai also reminded the industry that although the epidemic situation has once again boosted the market demand for cycle tire products, it is impossible for the epidemic situation to resolve the bottleneck encountered in the development of cycle tire industry. Therefore, whether it is to seize the market opportunities in the post epidemic period, or to seek the stable and sustainable development, enterprises must put the improvement of quality and efficiency in the first place, increase investment in automation, intelligence, digital upgrading and transformation, and pay more attention to the cultivation of brand and talents, the promotion of innovation, and the development of characteristic products.
Chen Zhihai believes that with the deepening of industrial restructuring, the proportion of medium and high-end products and the gradual expansion of high-tech and high-new materials applications, not only the collaborative innovation relationship between upstream and downstream industries and industry-academia-research will be closer, but also the opportunities for cooperation and development between peer enterprises with complementary advantages will gradually increase. It can be predicted that the new development pattern of industry intensive development replacing extensive development and benign competition replacing vicious competition will be basically formed during the "14th five-year plan" period.
