According to customs statistics, the total import and export volume of China’s hardware industry reached 128 billion 20 million US dollars in 2017. Among them, the total import and export of three traditional industries, such as building hardware, tool hardware and daily hardware, reached 42 billion 233 million dollars, 23 billion 190 million US dollars and 16 billion 444 million US dollars respectively. In the hardware eleven categories of commodities, they accounted for 64% of the total import and export of the hardware industry. Data show that the import and export growth of hardware three traditional industries also reached 11.25%, 10.73% and 3.50% respectively, showing a trend of “stabilization to better”. With the growth of the world economy and the improvement of the domestic economy, the traditional hardware industry will meet the opportunity of change. It is expected to achieve great leap forward in the aspects of structural optimization, technological innovation and quality improvement.
Both import and export data have been restored to positive growth
The data show that in 2017, the construction hardware industry completed the total export volume of 29 billion 974 million US dollars, up 11.49% and 23.9 percentage points from the same period last year, and completed the total import amount of 12 billion 259 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 10.65%. The tool hardware industry has completed the total export volume of 16 billion 219 million US dollars, up 14.26% from the previous year. The growth rate is compared to the previous year. In the same period, 15.15 percentage points increased, and the total amount of imports was 6 billion 971 million US dollars. The growth rate increased by 3.29% and 0.46 percentage points over the same period. The daily hardware industry has completed the total export volume of 15 billion 344 million US dollars, up 2.71% from the same period last year, and increased by 5.96 percentage points from the same period of last year. The total import amount is 1 billion 100 million US dollars, up 1 from the same year. 5.94%. The growth rate increased by 12.84 percentage points over the same period last year.
According to monthly data analysis, the import and export of the three traditional hardware industries showed a steady upward trend throughout the year, and the average level in the second half of the year was obviously higher than that in the first half year. From the way of trade, the proportion of the general trade mode of the building hardware industry and the tool hardware industry is increasing, and the growth rate is over 10%. This will help the enterprises to increase the value-added of the export, improve the profit of the enterprises, and further optimize the trade structure of the industry; the speed of the daily hardware industry is the lowest in the eleven major commodities of the hardware. It’s only 2.47%.
From the trade object, the object of trade is more diversified, in the consolidation of the United States and the European Union, Japan and other traditional markets at the same time, exports to Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa and other “BRIC countries” and “The Belt and Road” many countries along to achieve rapid growth.
It is worth noting that, from the import and export price comparison, the average import price of most of the products is higher than the export average, except for the drilling tools (with cermets) for the hardware of the daily hardware. Among them, the average price of the imported lighter, diamond drilling tools, barber equipment, sawing parts, drilling tools, flashlights and other lighting appliances is more than 10 times the average export price. Improving the added value of products as soon as possible is still the direction of the industry’s overall efforts.
Traditional industries still face challenges
Although the three major traditional hardware industries have made more satisfactory answers in trade in 2017, the challenges facing the industry still remain, and we need to accelerate the pace of transformation and upgrading and structural adjustment in the face of a fierce market competition.
First of all, with the disappearance of demographic dividend, the low cost competitive advantage of enterprises is gradually disappearing. Second, trade friction has become the norm and trade frictions are diversified because of over reliance on exports. Third, the appreciation of the renminbi in major trading countries also has an impact on import and export trade.
Despite the challenges, the traditional hardware industry has been promoted in a full range of cruel competition for many years, and the overall compression ability of the industry is more powerful than that in the past. Under the guidance of national policies, it is expected to break through the bottleneck and enter a new realm of development.
The policy leads the traditional industry to take off
With the introduction of several opinions of the general office of the State Council on creating a good market environment for the special action of “three products” in the consumer goods industry, the hardware industry has carried out a series of achievements in improving quality, brand and efficiency. The World Bank expects global economic growth to rise to 2.9% from 2.7% in 2017, with the international monetary fund raising its global economic growth expectations by 0.1 percentage points to 3.7%, with the International Monetary Fund up to 0.1 percentage points up to 3.7%. The traditional hardware industry will usher in a new round of high quality growth this year, and will lay a more solid foundation for future development.
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