Introduction: In recent years, global refined copper production and consumption has shown a steady growth trend, China is the world's largest contributor to the increase in refined copper consumption, 2004 -- 2017, the added value of copper pipe consumption in China has contributed more than 150% to the global value in the same period, and the copper pipe processing market in China has an important influence on the growth of copper pipe and copper consumption in the world.

1.Analysis of the current market situation of copper tube processing and manufacturing industry in foreign countries

(1)State of development

Copper is an important metal material, which is widely used in electric power equipment, ocean engineering, construction and transportation. The copper tube processing industry is one of the most rapidly developing subsectors in the copper product manufacturing industry. In recent years, the production and consumption of refined copper in the world has shown a steady growth trend. China is the largest contributor to the increase in the consumption of refined copper in the world, the added value of copper pipe consumption in China has contributed more than 150% to the global value in the same period, and the copper pipe processing market in China has an important influence on the growth of copper pipe and copper consumption in the world.

China has become the world's largest producer of copper tubes, with exports increasing year by year and manufacturing levels leading the world, according to a report by the Commodity Research Institute.

(2)Supply, demand and market outlook

From the perspective of regional distribution, due to factors such as production costs, the production of copper tubes in the traditional developed countries shows a trend of continuous reduction, while the production of copper tubes in Europe and North America is relatively stable, however, there is also a small decline in the production of copper pipe in Asia. Asian countries such as China need to seize the opportunity to promote the development of copper pipe manufacturing enterprises and market and enhance international competitiveness.

In 2016, the world copper pipe production has reached more than 3.5 million tons. Since 2003, the copper pipe production in China has been increasing year by year, while the production in the United States, Western Europe and South Korea has been decreasing year by year. At the same time, the demand of copper pipe in the world has also been increasing.

2.from the perspective of copper pipe use and market prospects, including the following aspects

(1)Construction and real estate

In developed countries, steel pipe is most widely used in real estate industry, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and other developed countries have been building water pipe as the preferred material. In addition, Europe, Southeast Asia and other places also use a large number of copper pipes. In recent years, although the consumption of copper pipes has shown a downward trend, but the use of copper pipes is more widespread, so the market will not shrink to a large extent. With the increase of copper pipe application in developing countries, the market scale is expected to expand further.

As of 2016, copper pipe demand in developing countries has exceeded 300,000 tons, while developed countries still maintain the level of one million tons. 

(2)Refrigeration Industry

The application of copper tube in refrigeration industry mainly refers to the water tube for air conditioning. There is a high demand for copper tube in Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, West Asia and other foreign markets. And Asia is undoubtedly the world's largest copper pipe production area, although the growth rate of the air conditioning industry has declined, but the demand for copper pipe air conditioning is still showing an increase trend.

(3)Desalination and marine engineering

Copper alloy condensing tubes are widely used in seawater desalination and ocean engineering because of their excellent conductivity, heat conductivity and corrosion resistance. By 2020, the seawater desalination capacity in China will exceed 3 million tons, and the demand for heat exchange and condensing copper tubes is great. Generally speaking, the development of the international copper pipe processing and manufacturing market is still not balanced. The rationality of the copper pipe product structure needs to be improved. For the fields of ocean and communication, high-tech copper pipes are needed, its production process is more complex, higher prices, and for Refrigeration and construction and other common areas, it highlights the problem of excess capacity, market competition is more intense.

3.Market situation and development trend of copper tube processing and manufacturing industry in China

(1)Accelerating industry consolidation

With the development of the copper pipe manufacturing industry, the development of the industry has been driven and the industry integration has been accelerated. The annual output of copper pipe processing materials in China has increased significantly, from the initial 452,000 tons to the later 2.51 million tons, a total increase of 455.3% , gradually expanded the copper pipe processing industry, the number of enterprises producing copper increased significantly.

But although there are a large number of copper pipe production enterprises in China, but these enterprises are too scattered, not centralized, and form vicious competition. In 2013, a total of 18 provinces and cities in China were able to process copper tubes, and the number of enterprises reached 350. Among them, 260 were responsible for producing red copper and 90 were responsible for other copper metals. By 2014, the output of copper tubes had increased slightly, the top 10 companies produce nearly half the nation's copper pipe, but only 12.3 percent of the total. From which can be analyzed, responsible for copper pipe processing enterprises in the majority of the state of loss, some even profit is only a meager profit, thus accelerating the consolidation of the industry. In view of this, copper tube processing enterprises should optimize the industry competition, eliminate malignant competition, establish benign competition, according to the existing development characteristics of the industry, objective analysis, find new development ideas.

(2)The competition is heating up

The global copper pipe industry's overall development, let the market to the copper pipe industry's development proposed the higher request. Compared with our country, the Western countries have the advantage of technology and equipment, and adopt advanced technology and equipment, but they have higher requirements for environmental protection and production personnel, so that they can not continue to produce smoothly, but move their enterprises to our country. Our country's advantage lies in having sufficient manpower and material resources. After entering our country, foreign enterprises can use our country's resources to continue production, but this will aggravate the competition of the industry, create obstacles to the development of enterprises, and the competition is more and more intense, enterprises must increase the input of technology to form their own advantages, so as to improve the core competitiveness, so that the quality of products in line with the requirements of the market, in the fierce competition to survive, will not be industry integration.

(3) The industrial structure needs to be optimized

The rapid development of the industry has brought to light many shortcomings in the existing copper pipe production structure in our country, and there are structural contradictions, such as the fact that modern copper pipe enterprises have automated production and small manual workshops at the same time, there are also big differences in how companies use technology. This situation will lead to the loss of competitive advantage of the entire enterprise, the emergence of vicious competition, the lack of a good market order, although some enterprises have formed their own advantages, but still need to compete with small workshops, many backward production processes are used all the time, which is bound to erode the profitability of the entire industry. Therefore, it is necessary to further optimize the industrial structure of the industry, eliminate structural contradictions, balance the relationship between enterprises and small workshops, and establish a fair and orderly market order. At the same time, enterprises can analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different production processes, combine with each other, eliminate the production technology that does not accord with the development of the Times, increase the profit of the industry, improve the profit-making ability.

(4)Market competitiveness and technological development capacity need to be further improved

The market competitiveness of copper tube production industry is relatively low, and its technical development capacity needs to be improved. Although China's copper pipe production has achieved certain development results, compared with Western European countries, the market competitiveness still needs to be improved. Western European countries use advanced technology and equipment, and have a high level of technology, but the technology level of our country's enterprises is low, especially in the aspects of technology development, the enterprises invest less energy and strength is weak. Therefore, in order to improve their market competitiveness, enterprises have increased their efforts in technological innovation, introduced advanced technology and equipment, made appropriate improvements according to their own actual conditions, upgraded their technological level, and realized technological upgrading. At the same time, also gradually expand the scale of production, increase the investment and use of capital, form the enterprise's advantage and brand, lay a good foundation for enterprise's large-scale production. At present, China's domestic market has great potential for development, and there are still many potentials that have not been tapped, and new demands have been put forward, requiring the entire copper pipe production industry to further upgrade on the basis of the original production level, develop new production technologies, such as copper alloy coil production technology, to meet market requirements. 

Source: Tongxinbao

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