At the beginning of the new year, China Machinery Industry Federation conducted a special investigation to understand the forecast of operation trend of 2018 industrial enterprises and investment intention, and to enrich the source of information for the operation analysis of the industry. According to the inventory, price, market expectation, investment Planning and investment direction, and conducted surveys and telephone interviews with more than 100 machinery enterprises involving 10 main types of construction machinery, petrochemical and general machinery, machine tools and tools, electrical appliances, automobiles, heavy mining, instrumentation and basic parts Industry.The results show that in 2018 business confidence has been strengthened but the pressure remains the same, investment prudence but structural optimization.
Orders to better confidence
In the order amount, 60% of the surveyed enterprises in hand orders to achieve growth over the previous year, 20% of business orders unchanged from the previous year.In the ordering cycle, 78% of enterprises in hand orders to meet the production needs within six months, As a result, the business confidence has been enhanced, with 50% of enterprises experiencing an expansion of their production scale over the previous year and another 41% of enterprises expecting their production scale to keep the same level as that of the previous year. Enterprises accounted for 61%, higher than the expected expansion of the scale of production of enterprises; expected profits of the company accounted for 33%.
Figure 1 2018 on the production scale and the expected profit
In addition, the operating environment, companies make a bias optimistic judgments.About 98% of the surveyed companies that the macroeconomic trend in 2018 will be flat or growth, 84% of the companies believe that the products of the market demand will be flat or increase, and 61% of companies expect significant growth in export markets.
Figure 2 2018 macroeconomic, corporate product sales, corporate product exports are expected
Costs rise and transmission is difficult
1, raw material costs
A sharp rise in the prices of raw materials represented by steel since 2017 has put pressure on the production and operation of machinery enterprises, and 77% of the enterprises are expected to continue their upward trend as expected from the raw material prices in 2018, with specific performance For high shocks or shocks up; the other 23% of the companies are expected to continue shocks.
70% of the companies think it is to be observed.In the telephone interview, the enterprises explained in detail that in order to resolve the risk of the price of raw materials rising too fast, the use of steel Large, long production cycle of products, enterprises and users signed an open contract and more - that is, according to the real-time price of steel on delivery to adjust the contract amount. In addition, the audit of the contract more stringent, strict control of contracts with high risk of loss. , Even with a variety of methods, only 34% of the enterprises surveyed can realize the price increase of finished products.
Figure 3 2018 raw material prices are expected
Figure 4 2018 enterprise employment plan
2, labor costs
The rising cost of labor is a common problem faced by enterprises, and the annual increase in recent years is about 8% -10%. In response to the pressure of rising labor costs, 27% of the companies surveyed have laid off their plans and when they are asked about job cuts , Some companies said they plan to reduce front-line workers by raising the level of automated production, while others said they plan to squeeze management as front-line workers are already at a low level.
29% of enterprises plan to increase staff, when asked to recruit objects, companies have said they want to increase R & D personnel rather than ordinary employees.Another part of the surveyed enterprises plan to increase the total number of R & D personnel based on the total number of employees In the ratio.
It is understood that the current R & D staff salary is about 1.5 times the ordinary staff -3 times, so the adjustment of employment structure will also be upgraded to promote the cost of labor continues to rise an important factor.
Prudent investment, the direction of adjustment
Investment in fixed assets and investment plan is another focus of the survey.The summary results show that the last round of large-scale investment in fixed assets focused on the 'Eleventh Five-Year' to 'Twelfth Five-Year' period, accounting for the surveyed enterprises 71% of the total investment is mainly used for the expansion of production capacity of the plant construction and equipment acquisition.Through this round of investment, the surveyed enterprises have basically formed a certain scale of production and production capacity, enough to meet the market demand for its traditional products.
Fig. 5 Time distribution of the previous round of large-scale investment in the surveyed enterprises
24% of the surveyed companies made large-scale investments in 2016 and 2017. It is understood that large-scale investments during this period are mostly related to R & D, partly through the establishment of R & D centers and partly by the construction of production bases for the successful development of new products, Compared with the previous period, the investment direction of simply expanding production capacity has changed a certain amount.
When asked about future investment plans, companies generally think that once again similar to the previous round of large-scale investment is not high probability of future investment will be localized, the scale will be basically stable in the past two years the level of the questionnaire results show that, 33% of enterprises planned investment in 2018 will drop from the previous year, 44% of enterprises will be basically the same as last year, only 23% plan to increase investment in the direction of investment in fixed assets, the basic focus on digital intelligent transformation , Energy saving and environmental protection reform, etc. In addition, the R & D investment to increase investment in fixed assets to reduce development strategy repeatedly been mentioned by the enterprises.
in conclusion
According to the survey results, market confidence of machinery enterprises started to be enhanced in 2018, but investment is still cautious, and the industry is expected to run smoothly and investment in fixed assets will continue to be low.