January-August 2010 Metalworking Machine Tool Import and Export Analysis

China Investment Advisory Network News In the first 8 months of this year, China's import and export trade of metal processing machines has maintained a substantial increase, but the trade deficit has continued to widen. At the same time, the increasing import and export prices of machine tools have caused concern in the industry.

First, the increase in the price of machine tool imports

1. Significant growth in metal processing machines year-on-year

In August 2010, China imported 9754 metal processing machines, an increase of 10.34% compared with the previous period, and a year-on-year increase of 138.25%. The import amount was approximately US$829 million, a decrease of 4.26% from the previous quarter and a year-on-year increase of 117.63%. The average unit price for imports was USD 84,996 per unit, which was a decrease of 13.23% compared with the previous period and a year-on-year decrease of 8.66%. From January to August, China imported a total of 68,460 metal processing machines, an increase of 63.9% year-on-year; the cumulative import amount was approximately US$5.62 billion, an increase of 42.2% year-on-year; the average import price was US$82,088 per unit, a year-on-year decrease of 13.26%.

2. Import volume of CNC machine tools increased significantly

In August, China imported 2,050 CNC machine tools, an increase of 46.31% from the previous period and a year-on-year increase of 229.51%. Imports reached US$311 million, a year-on-year increase of 4.23%, and an increase of 122.86% year-on-year. The average import unit price was US$151,057 per unit, a month-on-month decrease. 28.8%, down 32.5% year-on-year.

From January to August, China's total imports of 10916 CNC machine tools, an increase of 81.7%; import value of 2.141 billion US dollars, an increase of 21.8%; average import unit price of 196098 US dollars / Taiwan, down 33.69%. It can be seen that the increase in the number of imports of CNC machine tools is even more pronounced than in the case of metal processing machine tools, indicating that the import structure of China's machine tools is still unreasonable, and the apparent decline in the value of high-end products is worthy of attention by the industry and related companies.

II. Significant growth in machine tool exports continues to increase its trade deficit

In August, China exported 740,000 sets of metal processing machine tools, which was a 6.6% decrease from the previous period and an increase of 21.27% year-on-year. The export amount was approximately US$165 million, a decrease of 11.37% from the previous quarter and a substantial increase of 49.1% year-on-year. The average export price was 224 US dollars per unit, a decrease of 5.11% from the previous quarter and a year-on-year increase of 22.95%. Among them, in August China exported 27,507 CNC machine tools, a year-on-year increase of 280.8%; exports amounted to 39.945 million US dollars, an increase of 90.5%; average export unit price was 1452 US dollars / Taiwan, a sharp drop of 93.4%.

From January to August, China exported a total of 5.027 million sets of metal processing machine tools, an increase of 35.9% year-on-year; cumulative exports amounted to approximately US$1.16 billion, a year-on-year increase of 25.7%; and export average unit price was US$237 per unit, an increase of 6.2% year-on-year.

In August, the trade deficit of China's metal processing machine tools was 664 million U.S. dollars, a decrease of 15.556 million U.S. dollars, but a significant increase of 399 million U.S. dollars year-on-year. From January to August, the trade deficit of China's metal processing machine tools was US$4.456 billion, an increase of US$1.385 billion over the same period of 2009.

Third, there are problems

1. The growth rate of import and export of metal processing machines is lower than that of non-host products

The import and export of China's machine tool products have been showing a rapid growth trend since January this year. However, it is worth noting that the growth rate of the import and export of metal processing machine tools is far lower than the growth rate of the import and export of machine tool products, especially exports, and the first products to recover are loss products such as cutting tools and abrasives. According to customs data, some low-value cutting tools are still exported in large quantities, and exports of “two high-owned and one resource” such as silicon carbide and boron carbide have doubled. Recently, in order to control the export of high-energy-consuming products, the state has accelerated the elimination of backward production capacity and cancelled the export tax rebate rate for some products. Although the list of adjustments does not refer to machine tool products, it does not rule out that in the future those temporary and emergency measures taken to deal with the financial crisis will be adjusted back.

2. No significant improvement in the structure of machine tool export products

This year, the export of metal processing machine tools showed a linear upward trend, and the growth of CNC metal processing machine tools reached 40.4%. Among them, the growth of CNC special-purpose machine tools, CNC lathes, CNC boring machines, CNC gantry milling machines, and CNC forming bending machines exceeds the overall growth rate of CNC machine tools. However, as export-oriented CNC machine tools are mainly based on inexpensive economic models, their average export prices have decreased from the previous year. Except for the average unit price of exports of a few products such as CNC boring and milling machines and CNC milling machines, the average unit price has remained relatively unchanged. Most of the products have remained flat or have declined in different degrees. The average unit price of export of processing centers has the largest decrease, which is -35.6%. Paying attention to improving the technological content and grades of export products and increasing the export of high value-added products are still the main tasks before us.