Abrasives are important supporting products for the manufacturing industry and are widely used in various fields such as machine tools, ships, automobiles, building materials, 3C, aerospace and high speed rail. China is currently the world's largest abrasives manufacturing and application market, playing a very important role in the global industrial chain and supply chain.
The Secretariat of the Abrasives Branch of China Machine Tool & Tool Industry Association has compiled and analyzed the import and export data of abrasives in the first half of 2022 for industry reference.
1. Analysis of export data
(1) Overall situation
The export volume and price of each major product of the abrasives industry in the first half of 2022 are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Abrasives industry in the first half of 2022
Export volume and price of each major product.
The export volume of abrasives products in the first half of 2022 was USD 1.424 billion, up 20.59% year-on-year. Among them, the export volume of brown corundum fell by 3.61% year-on-year, and the export value rose by 22.94% year-on-year; the export volume of other artificial corundum (mainly white corundum) rose by 11.57% year-on-year, and the export value rose by 35.32% year-on-year; the export volume of silicon carbide rose by 21.18% year-on-year, and the export value increased by 80.94% year-on-year; the export volume of abrasives fell by 8.08% year-on-year, and the export value fell by 2.29%.
Overall, the export volume of all three categories of products, except for silicon carbide and other artificial corundum, declined by varying degrees in the first half of 2022. In terms of export value, except for abrasives, all types of products saw an increase of different magnitudes, which was mainly due to the continued high prices of various major raw materials in the industry, the upward adjustment of product prices by enterprises and the impact of exchange rate fluctuations
The main export countries and regions of four types of products in the first half of 2022
The main exporting countries and regions of brown corundum, other artificial corundum, silicon carbide and abrasive products in the first half of 2022
Comparing 2021, the exporting countries for the four main product categories have not changed, only the ranking order has changed somewhat. Three features are noteworthy: firstly, demand for both corundum and silicon carbide products fell significantly year-on-year in Japan; secondly, imports of silicon carbide products from the United States rose by 35.69% year-on-year, and imports of other synthetic corundum from the Netherlands, the main distribution centre for the industry's products in Europe, rose by 67.1% year-on-year, explaining the rise in exports of silicon carbide and other synthetic corundum in the first half of 2022 ; Thirdly, compared to abrasives, the export region of abrasives remained mainly in Southeast Asia, with the share of abrasives exports to India remaining at 24%, largely unchanged from the same period in 2021.