In the first quarter of 2023, the economic operation of China's printing and dyeing industry was generally under pressure. In terms of production, with the rapid and stable transformation of epidemic prevention and control in China, residents' consumption scenes have accelerated the recovery, textile and apparel terminal consumption has shown a moderate recovery trend, the internal power has recovered, the printing and dyeing industry production has generally maintained a stable trend, and the output scale of printed and dyed cloth is basically unchanged from the same period last year. In terms of exports, the industry showed a certain toughness, exports continued a good trend, the main printing and dyeing products exports in the same period of last year on the basis of a high base still maintained growth, but the export unit price fell more obvious; In terms of operation quality and efficiency, the downstream demand is not smooth and the price of raw materials is relatively high, resulting in the main economic benefit indicators of the printing and dyeing industry continuing to decline, and the business operation is under obvious pressure.
The production situation is gradually improving
The scale of production declined slightly
According to the National Bureau of Statistics data, from January to March 2023, the printing and dyeing industry enterprises above designated size printed cloth production of 12.491 billion meters, a year-on-year decrease of 0.27%, the decline from January to February narrowed by 7.83 percentage points. From the monthly production point of view, in March, printing and dyeing enterprises above designated size printed cloth production 5.826 billion meters, an increase of 11.37%. In the first quarter, the production situation of the printing and dyeing industry gradually improved, and the decline in printed cloth production from January to February continued the continuous expansion trend since the fourth quarter of 2022, and the production situation improved significantly in March, with the monthly output hitting a new high of nearly a year, and the cumulative output decline narrowed. The improvement in the production situation of the industry is mainly due to the optimization and adjustment of China's epidemic prevention and control policy, the offline consumption scene has accelerated the recovery, and the terminal consumption has picked up. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the retail sales of clothing, shoes and hats, needles and textile products in the first quarter of China's units above the quota increased by 9.0% year-on-year, an increase of 9.9 percentage points over the same period last year; Among the online retail sales of physical goods, the retail sales of clothing goods increased by 8.6% year-on-year, which was 1.3 percentage points higher than the growth rate of retail sales of food and use goods.
Industry earnings remain under pressure
The decline in benefits has narrowed
According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to March 2023, the operating income of printing and dyeing enterprises above designated size was 65.336 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.18%, and a decrease of 5.35 percentage points compared with January to February. The total profit was 1.193 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 36.67%, and a decrease of 52.62 percentage points compared with January to February; Sales profit margin of 1.83%, 1.07 percentage points lower than the previous year, the lowest level in recent years. The number of loss-making households of 1732 printing and dyeing enterprises above designated size was 787, with a loss of 45.44%, an increase of 6.62 percentage points year-on-year; The total loss of loss-making enterprises was 1.461 billion yuan, up 44.13% year-on-year. In the first quarter, the main economic benefit indicators of the printing and dyeing industry continued to decline, the profit pressure of the industry was still prominent, and the industry loss was still at a high level, but the economic benefit of the industry showed signs of improvement in March. The main reasons for the pressure on the profitability of the printing and dyeing industry are: First, affected by the complex international situation, the prices of main raw materials in the printing and dyeing industry remain high and volatile, the energy cost of enterprises is still high, and the cost pressure on the production end is prominent; Second, the market demand is still insufficient, the price to the downstream transmission of the industrial chain is not smooth, and the operating profits of enterprises are significantly affected.
Exports keep growing
The volume of major products rises and the price falls
According to China Customs data, from January to March 2023, the export volume of eight categories of printing and dyeing products was 8.08 billion meters, an increase of 11.60%, and the growth rate fell 2.50 percentage points from the same period last year; The export value was 7.853 billion US dollars, an increase of 2.25%, and the growth rate was 22.64 percentage points lower than that of the same period last year; The average unit price of exports was 0.98 US dollars/meter, down 8.38% year-on-year, and the growth rate fell 17.84 percentage points from the same period last year. Among the main export products, the export quantity of T/C printed and dyed cloth and human fiber staple fiber fabric achieved rapid growth, the growth rate reached 272.76% and 19.68% respectively; The export unit price of polyester staple fiber fabric rose by 17.10%, the only category in which the export unit price of printing and dyeing products rose. In the main export markets, the export volume of China's eight major categories of printing and dyeing products to RCEP trading partners and ASEAN countries increased by 6.62% and 7.23%, respectively, and the export amount decreased by 1.50% and 2.24%, respectively. In the first quarter, in the face of the development environment of shrinking international market demand, the export of China's printing and dyeing industry still maintained a good trend, and the export of main products continued to grow on the basis of a higher base in the same period last year, but the average export unit price fell significantly, reflecting the current export competition in the industry.
In general, in the first quarter, with the rapid and stable turn of epidemic prevention and control in China, the policies and measures of stable growth, stable employment and stable prices took the lead, and the accumulation of positive factors increased, and the economic operation of the printing and dyeing industry generally achieved a stable start. Looking ahead to the second quarter, a moderate recovery will remain the main trend, but the recovery process will be affected by multiple factors. First of all, the current recovery of domestic consumption is not stable, insufficient domestic demand is still the primary problem facing the industry, it still takes a long time to improve the efficiency of enterprises, and the expectations and confidence of economic entities need to continue to be boosted. Secondly, the international environment is still complex and changeable, the global economic growth slowdown is expected to rise significantly, the impact on industry exports will gradually appear, and industry exports will face many uncertainties in the second quarter. On the positive side, China's macro economy has become increasingly overall better, GDP growth in the first quarter exceeded expectations, it is expected that the domestic economy in the second quarter will continue to recover to a good trend, steadily to a good macro fundamentals, gradually improve the employment situation and residents' expectations, continue to release the potential of large scale domestic demand market, will become an important support for the steady recovery of the industry.
