Overall analysis of the domestic and international market structure of Chinese cutting tools
At present, the annual sales revenue of cutting tools in China is 14.5 billion yuan, of which hard alloy cutting tools account for less than 25%. This is not only far from the product structure of cutting tools in the international market, but also cannot meet the growing demand for hard alloy cutting tools in the domestic manufacturing industry. In the domestic manufacturing industry, the proportion of hard alloy cutting tools has exceeded 50%, and the problem of supply and demand structure disconnection is very serious. The consequence is that a large number of surplus high-speed steel cutting tools are exported or sold domestically at low prices, while high-efficiency hard alloy cutting tools have to rely on a large amount of imports. The import volume has increased from 90 million US dollars in 2001 to 450 million US dollars (about 3.6 billion yuan) in 2005.
Unbalanced tool structure refers to the mismatch between the produced tools and the demand. For example, there is a large gap in the hard alloy cutting tools that users need, but there is overproduction of high-speed steel cutting tools; The modern manufacturing industry urgently needs a large shortage of efficient cutting tools, but low-end standard cutting tools are overproduced. In developed countries, hard alloy cutting tools currently dominate the cutting tool market, with a weight ratio of 70%. However, high-speed steel cutting tools are decreasing at a rate of 1% to 2% per year, and the current proportion has dropped to below 30%.
The proportion of superhard cutting tools such as diamond and cubic boron nitride is about 3%. At present, China‘s annual production of high-speed steel is about 80000 tons, accounting for about 40% of the global total production, consuming a large amount of precious rare resources such as tungsten and molybdenum. This blind expansion and low-level repetition have led to a large surplus of high-speed steel cutting tools produced, which have to be sold at low prices, resulting in low efficiency for a large number of cutting tool production enterprises. China currently produces 16000 tons of hard alloy annually, accounting for about 40% of the global total production. However, the production of cutting blades with the highest added value in hard alloy products is only over 3000 tons, accounting for only 20%. This situation has caused a shortage of urgently needed hard alloy cutting tools in China, and also underutilized precious hard alloy resources.
In terms of economic benefits, China‘s annual sales revenue of hard alloys is about 560 million US dollars; Japan accounts for only 40% of China‘s production, but its sales revenue is as high as 2.633 billion US dollars, of which the proportion of blades (cutting tools) is as high as 72%, fully utilizing resources and achieving good benefits for enterprises. Our country‘s tool industry should gain some beneficial insights from it.
