In the first half of the year, the construction machinery industry operated steadily. The sales volume of major products continued to grow substantially. At the same time, the industry's import and export grew rapidly. The international market's rigid demand for China's construction machinery continued to increase.
The high level of commodity prices and the sharp increase in raw material prices are one of the prominent contradictions faced by the economic operation this year. At present, relevant departments have adopted a series of measures to ensure supply and stable prices, and downstream companies are also actively managing costs and self-decompression through various means such as hedging, long-term strategic cooperation, and industrial chain allocation.
The price of rebar once exceeded 6,000 yuan/ton, with the highest increase of more than 40% during the year; the average domestic copper spot price in the first five months of this year exceeded 65,000 yuan/ton, an increase of 49.1% year-on-year... Since the beginning of this year, the price of bulk commodities has risen sharply. The PPI (Ex-factory Price Index of Industrial Producers) rose 9.0% year-on-year in May, setting a new high since 2008.
In terms of sales volume, according to the association's statistics, the sales volume of major construction machinery products from January to May increased by 57.7% year-on-year, achieving substantial growth. Judging from the sales growth of major products in each month of this year, the total monthly growth rates from February to May were 139.6%, 68.6%, 36.1%, and 28.5%, respectively. The monthly growth rate showed a steady adjustment trend, which was mainly driven by investment since the epidemic. Factors influence.
From 2020 to the first quarter of this year, the construction machinery industry has a large growth rate. In April and May, the growth rate of most products fell compared with the same period of the previous year, and the market gradually returned to a normal range. Su Zimeng, president of the China Construction Machinery Industry Association, said that this will help the industry achieve the goal of steady growth throughout the year and maintain the high-quality development of the industry.
In terms of import and export, customs data show that from January to May, my country's construction machinery import and export trade volume was 13.622 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 41.3%. Among them, the import value was US$1.7 billion, an increase of 11% year-on-year; the export value was US$11.922 billion, an increase of 47% year-on-year, and the trade surplus was US$10.22 billion, an increase of US$3.645 billion year-on-year. From January to May, the exports of construction machinery to six continents all increased significantly.
Among them, exports to Asia were US$5.361 billion, accounting for 44.97% of total exports, a year-on-year increase of 46.7%; exports to Africa were US$1.07 billion, accounting for 8.95% of total exports, a year-on-year increase of 43.9%; exports to Europe were US$2.71 billion, accounting for 22.75% of total exports , A year-on-year increase of 53.2%; exports to North America 1.331 billion US dollars, accounting for 11.2% of total exports, an increase of 27.3%; exports to Oceania US$552 million, accounting for 4.63% of total exports, a year-on-year increase of 47.7%; exports to South America US$ 898 million, accounting for 7.53% of total exports, a year-on-year increase of 71.7%. Except for the relatively small increase in exports to North America, the growth rates of other continents all exceeded 40%, especially exports to South America, which increased by 71.7%.
According to recent data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to May this year, industrial enterprises above designated size achieved a total profit of 3,424.74 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 83.4%. Among them, upstream companies such as non-ferrous metals made outstanding contributions. In terms of industries, the total profit of the non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry increased by 3.87 times year-on-year, the ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry increased by 3.77 times, the oil and natural gas extraction industry increased by 2.73 times, and the chemical raw materials and chemical products manufacturing industry increased by 2.11 times. The coal mining and washing industry increased by 1.09 times.
"This year's rebar and copper prices have risen rapidly, which has caused great pressure on our construction and indoor installation businesses, and some projects are on the verge of loss." A person in charge of a large construction company in East China told reporters that in order to reduce the pressure of rising costs , The company has negotiated with the owner to appropriately slow down the construction progress to avoid the peak price increase period. "We hope that the raw material price increase cycle will not be too long this time, and the control measures will be effective in time, so that the cost pressure in the later period can be reduced."
This year's commodity price increases were affected by multiple factors such as the expansionary monetary policies of developed countries, the supply contraction caused by the epidemic, and speculation. In the context of government regulation and control, many downstream companies have adopted various measures to start cost control wars:
——Use financial instruments such as futures hedging to hedge risks. The listed company Yi'an Technology recently announced that: “It intends to use its own funds to carry out the hedging business of aluminum alloy futures, hedging the aluminum alloy futures of no more than 4600 tons, and the total investment deposit shall not exceed 13.8 million yuan.”
Statistics show that as of mid-June, more than 180 A-share listed companies have issued announcements stating that companies or subsidiaries use their own funds to carry out commodity futures hedging business (excluding foreign exchange hedging).
"Since this year, many new customers, such as auto parts companies in Jiangsu and coating companies in Shandong, have come to us for consulting hedging business, planning to use financial tools to lock in raw material prices and reduce operating risks." Everbright Futures Research Institute Said Qiu Yuecheng, director of black research.
In terms of using derivatives to manage risks, a noteworthy indicator is that as of the end of April this year, customer equity in my country's futures market broke through the trillion yuan mark for the first time in history, reaching 1024.352 billion yuan, a sharp increase of nearly 400 billion yuan in the past year.
——Adopt fine management methods such as digitization and intelligence to reduce costs and seek transformation. "In this round of raw material price increases, manufacturing companies are generally affected. By accelerating the intelligent transformation and digital innovation of factories, and alleviating the squeeze of raw material prices on operations, we expect that there is still significant room for growth in sales and profits throughout the year." Zhejiang, a large manufacturing province, Zhang Hongxin, deputy general manager of Wolong Electric Drive Group Co., Ltd., told reporters.
Since the beginning of this year, the prices of raw materials such as silicon steel, copper and permanent magnet materials have soared, causing the overall cost of Wolong Electric to rise by more than 20%. In this context, Wolong Electric not only did not reduce the investment in transformation and upgrading, but increased the pace of intelligent transformation, using automated production to reduce production costs and improve production efficiency. At the same time, build a digital platform to realize automatic collection of motor data, expert diagnosis, and enhance the resilience of the industrial chain by creating greater value for users.
——Through long-term strategic cooperation, industrial chain apportionment and other ways to overcome difficulties together. “Building materials such as rebar and other building materials have an information guide price. We negotiate with the owners. If the guide price for this month is within 5% compared with the previous month, our construction company will absorb it by itself; , The owners also help to bear the burden. The current raw material price increase can be dealt with by the way everyone shares it together.” said the person in charge of the aforementioned East China Construction Enterprise.
Strategic cooperation with industry chain partners is also an option. Wu Wenquan, general manager of Hengan (Zhejiang) Household Products Co., Ltd., said that in addition to using futures tools to hedge against fluctuations in raw material prices, the company is also actively forming long-term strategic partnerships with front-end suppliers. "We have cooperated with an upstream company for more than 30 years. All purchases are long-term orders, with a three-month reserve cycle, one in the warehouse, one in the port terminal, and one in the factory. The enterprise needs to be large-scale, We must consider the lock-in of raw material costs and have a number of long-term strategic partners."
Li Qilin, director of the Hongta Securities Research Institute, said that the current consensus on the unilateral rise in commodity prices has been broken, and the regulatory authorities have been emphasizing the need to control commodity prices recently. In this context, the pressure on mid- and downstream enterprises and small and micro enterprises caused by rising raw material prices is expected to gradually ease.
