On May 9, the "China Polycarbonate Industry Survey Report 2019" (hereinafter referred to as "Report"), organized by the Polycarbonate Branch of China Synthetic Resin Supply and Marketing Association, was released in Beijing.
The report points out that for many years, polycarbonate has been a new type of macromolecule engineering material encouraged by the state, and it is also the most used engineering plastics in the industry. With the rapid development of economy, the polycarbonate industry in China has developed rapidly in recent years, and the production capacity has been increasing. Over the past five years, domestic polycarbonate production has increased from 610,000 tons in 2014 to 1.205 million tons in 2018, with an average annual growth rate of 18.6%. Domestic polycarbonate production capacity is expected to reach 352,000 tons per year by 2022, with an average annual growth rate of 30%.
In contrast to the rapid growth of production capacity, downstream application of polycarbonate has entered a period of low-speed development, and the overall profitability of the industry is worrying.
Domestic polycarbonate consumption increased from 1.53 million tons in 2014 to 1.84 million tons in 2018, with an average annual growth rate of less than 5%, and the growth rate of production capacity was much higher than that of demand. At present, the self-sufficiency rate of domestic polycarbonate is about 50%. With the release of new production capacity in the future, the self-sufficiency rate will be greatly increased. It is expected that the domestic production of polycarbonate will exceed the demand in 3-4 years.
The report predicts that the domestic application of polycarbonate in the fields of electronics, automobile, household appliances and medical treatment will maintain a growth rate of 4%-6% in the next few years. The growth in the fields of sheet metal and packaging is closely related to the construction of national infrastructure and laws and regulations, and is expected to maintain a growth rate of 3%-5%. With the development of new storage methods such as cloud storage and 5G and high-speed network, the optical media market will continue to shrink. Overall, consumption growth is weak, and the industry has entered a period of low-speed development.
To make matters worse, the current market price of polycarbonate has fallen to a low point.
At present, the main market application of polycarbonate is bisphenol A polycarbonate. The price difference between polycarbonate and bisphenol A determines the profit situation. It is generally believed in the industry that the difference between polycarbonate and bisphenol A is more than 5000-6000 yuan, so that the polycarbonate plant can maintain a certain profit.
After entering the second half of 2018, the price of polycarbonate dropped sharply, and the price difference between polycarbonate and bisphenol A narrowed rapidly. At one time, it even reached below 4000 yuan/ton, resulting in a general loss in the industry. In the future, the price gap between polycarbonate and bisphenol A may remain low for a long time, and the overall profitability of the industry is worrying.
On the one hand, & ldquo; crazy & rdquo; investment boom, huge capacity increment, on the other hand, is the relatively slow growth of downstream demand and the depressed market. In the next three to five years, with the release of new plant capacity, the whole polycarbonate industry will face greater pressure.
However, in the field of high-quality and special performance polycarbonate, it is still the market of a few powerful foreign-funded enterprises, and domestic enterprises have not made significant breakthroughs. The report estimates that in the long run, at least 500,000 tons of polycarbonate imported by China each year cannot be replaced.
Faced with the situation of excessive low-end products and lack of high-end products in China, the report puts forward some suggestions for the development of the industry: we should strengthen the national macro-guidance, warn the market from the national level, local government level and industry organizations, make the industry realize the real situation of industrial development, and avoid blind and irrational investment. It is feasible to establish and improve the catalogue of industry guidance and appropriately increase the threshold of industry access. It is suggested that enterprises increase their investment in scientific research, enhance their independent R&D capabilities, improve product quality, enrich product categories and continue to make efforts in high-end products.
To this end, Duan Qingsheng, Secretary-General of the Polycarbonate Branch of China Synthetic Resin Association, said at the press conference that the Association would give full play to its platform advantages, find out the current situation of the industry development, listen to the demands of enterprises, and build a good bridge between the government and the industry. In order to provide the basis for industrial decision-making and policy-making for enterprises and governments, the association will work out "2025-2035 Polycarbonate Industry Applications and Future Development Directions" in conjunction with relevant enterprises.