China Ceramics Network News (Author: Squirrel) "I want to take you to romantic Turkey, and then Let’s go to Tokyo and Paris together. In fact, I especially like Miami and Los Angeles where I have friends...”
Cough cough cough! Welcome to Zhongtao Travel Agency. We regret to inform you that the countries and cities mentioned above are not able to organize tours!
Because we are getting ready to go and watch the "Great African Migration" of ceramic companies!
According to official statistics from major companies, Teful, Wangkang, Boda, Diyuan, 16 Chinese-funded enterprises, including China Communications Construction Company, Xinmei, "Marco Polo" (Note: Marco Polo is not owned by Guangdong Weimei), and Times Ceramics, have invested a total of more than 6.167 billion yuan in Africa. >, more than 51 production lines have been built, and the total daily production capacity exceeds 769,500 m² (note: some enterprise data are incomplete). In recent years, more and more Chinese investment has been invested in ceramic manufacturing in Africa, including countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Tanzania.
Having said this, I believe many people have slowly raised a question mark in their hearts: The market situation is so bad, why are so many companies carrying out large-scale projects and spending huge sums of money to invest and build overseas? Factories? Africa has always given people the impression of poverty, backwardness, and lack of resources. Why do Chinese ceramic companies build overseas factories in Africa?
Come on, come on, let's sit down and chat about this issue!
01. The market is declining and China’s ceramic production capacity is declining
I don’t know when it started, “This year is the worst year in the past ten years, and also "The best year in the next ten years" has become the "divine prophecy" of many pottery builders. It is not an exaggeration to describe the ceramic industry in the past few years as "suffering all over the place".
In 2018, there were 1,265 architectural ceramics companies above designated size,137 companies have withdrawn from the stage of history; as of the end of May this year, 104 construction and ceramics companies above designated size have withdrawn from the market. In the ceramic industry, there are frequent reports of business closures, bosses running away, production and kiln shutdowns, and suppliers having difficulty collecting payments. However, these visible problems are only the tip of the iceberg of challenges faced by ceramic companies.And isn’t the reason for these problems ultimately attributed to “sluggish market, improper management, and ineffective policies”?
After more than ten years of environmental protection control, the government has become more and more strict. The driving force behind the upgrade. Ceramic enterprises are required to implement "coal-to-gas" conversion. At the same time, for enterprises in the same ceramic production area, only some high-quality and up-to-standard enterprises will be retained. The remaining enterprises that lack the conditions for transformation are encouraged to take the initiative to close down and exit or switch production and transformation.
The closure and merger of enterprises indirectly plays a role in reducing production capacity. In order to control production capacity and reduce energy consumption, some ceramic production areas do not hesitate to adopt a "one size fits all" approach. For ceramic companies, production capacity determines everything, which is related to the company's inventory and product output.
In the early days, Foshan's ceramic industry flourished, but later suffered from environmental protection regulations. In order to maintain the baseline of Foshan's ceramic industry, the ceramic production line in Nanzhuang Town, Foshan was transferred to Zhaoqing, Gaoming and other places in a large-scale strategy of "vacating the cage and replacing the bird". In the past few years, the GDP of Nanzhuang Town has increased instead of falling, from 6.2 billion yuan in 2006 to 10.2 billion yuan in 2009.
However, in more than ten years, policies have been implemented in various places, not only in Zhaoqing and Foshan, but also in Shandong, Fujian, Hebei, Shanxi, Sichuan and other production areas, have successively introduced various policies to restrict the "expansion" of the ceramic industry, and the strategy of "vacating the cage and replacing the birds" is obviously useless. Pottery enterprises are like ants on a hot pot. If they don't step out, their development will be restricted.
Therefore, in recent years, ceramic companies have focused on Southeast Asia, Africa and other places to invest and build factories overseas. , which can not only maintain production capacity, but also go out and expand overseas markets, killing two birds with one stone.
02. Serious homogeneity and fierce competition
Homogenization is a common problem in the ceramics industry, including product homogeneity, packaging and promotion. Qualification, channel model homogeneity, store style homogeneity, etc.
Take the "functional tiles" tiles that have gained the most limelight during the Ceramics Expo this spring. . Functional ceramic tiles did not appear in recent years. As early as thirteen years ago, special negative ion ceramic tiles began to be made and patented. However, the negative ion ceramic tiles back then were only corporate behavior for the industry.
But since the 2018 Autumn Ceramics Expo, functional ceramic tiles have begun to spring up like mushrooms after a rain. This spring the Ceramics Expo will be at its peak, and this will be theProducing functional ceramic tiles has become an industry activity. Almost every company has announced that it has started to make functional ceramic tiles. At the same time, the functions of its own ceramic tiles are different from those of other companies, such as air purification tiles, negative ion tiles, sunshine health tiles, breathing tiles, etc. However, after interviews, the editor found that in fact, the functional differences between the functional tiles of various companies are not big, but the gimmicks and publicity are different.
Originally developed and produced functional ceramic tiles in order to highlight its own brand in the current era of homogeneity. Selling point, however, as more and more companies produce functional ceramic tiles, functional ceramic tiles have changed from a niche market product to a mainstream product in the industry, and they cannot escape the reality of homogeneity in the ceramic industry.
It is precisely because the competition in China's ceramic industry is so fierce that a new thing has emerged in a short period of time. It may develop into a mainstream trend. Looking back at the African market, Africa is currently moving towards urbanization and the development of new technologies. Many African governments are working hard to reverse the situation of turmoil, conflict and crisis in Africa and achieve political stability.
According to relevant statistics, Africa is facing huge population pressure, with 50% of Africans The person is under 19 years of age. The current population of Africa is 1.28 billion, and it is expected that it will increase by another 1 billion in the next ten years. The rapid expansion of the population is driving the urbanization process in Africa.
People have always stereotyped Africa as poor, a reality that people look down upon. In fact, some AfricanThe country has always maintained rapid growth.
According to a study by AfrAsia Bank, from 2007 to 2017,African private Total wealth increased by an average of 13%, while in 2018 it increased by 3%. It is expected that in the next ten years, that is, by the end of 2027, the total private wealth in Africa will increase by 34%, reaching 31,000 US dollars (equivalent to approximately 213,200 yuan). Mauritius, Ghana, Rwanda and Uganda will be the strongest performing markets, with private wealth growth rates between 90% and 150%. Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zambia, Kenya, Botswana and Namibia also performed relatively strongly, with private wealth growth rates between 50% and 80%, while South Africa, Angola, Morocco, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Nigeria are expected to have lower growth rates , but relatively speaking it is still in a positive state of development.
Although the growth of Africa's per capita disposable income and consumption has also promoted the development of Africa's local manufacturing industry development, but still cannot meet domestic demand. From 2008 to 2017, African ceramic tile production increased from 308 million square meters to 700 million square meters in 2017, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.5%, which still cannot fully meet local ceramic tile consumption demand. Therefore,the African continent remains the third market for ceramic tile imports in the world.
And the smart Chinese pottery builders are keen Realizing the opportunities in this market, exporting ceramic tiles to Africa can no longer satisfy their ambitions. They are also trying to find new channels to reduce tariffs, logistics and other conditions.software constraints. Therefore, the mighty Chinese ceramic army is holding high the flag, responding to the country’s “One Belt, One Road” call, investing in and building factories on the African continent, and launching its own “new domestic products”.
03. Anti-dumping
Speaking of anti-dumping, I believe everyone is familiar with it. In recent years, various countries have launched anti-dumping cases against my country's ceramic tiles one after another, and the scope has gradually expanded, making the industry even worse in the deep winter. Europe, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, the United States and other countries and regions have successively initiated anti-dumping against Chinese ceramic tiles.
Although the anti-dumping initiated by various countries has indeed had a great impact on the export of my country's ceramic tiles, it cannot Block the export trade of Chinese architectural ceramics. The national "One Belt, One Road" strategy is to encourage Chinese entrepreneurs to go global. How can ceramic companies be missing from this huge expedition team? If foreign companies try to hinder the export of Chinese ceramic tiles, Chinese ceramic companies will naturally have the ability to make them unstoppable.
Chinese ceramics companies grasp existing resources and consider their own business and management capabilities to integrate Chinese ceramics into Enterprise operation models, Chinese talents, science and technology and other resources are exported abroad, and factories and production lines are invested and constructed overseas to lay a solid foundation in advance. At the same time, Chinese ceramic companies are gathering together to "migrate" and fight in groups, effectively occupying local shares., to prepare for future overseas export.
People always say: "When God closes one door, he will inevitably open another for you. "Window." In my opinion, Chinese pottery builders have already been developing outwards and facing the sun through the cracks before the door is closed. The process of global integration is slow and silent, and may trigger a war without gunpowder at any time. How Chinese ceramic companies can have a say in the global ceramic construction system requires a lot of planning and a lot of attempts!
