In 2019, the growth rate of the world economy continued to decline, the growth of international trade and investment was not good, the total global demand was insufficient, the advanced economies fell into a continuous downturn and restricted global economic growth, and the external environment for the development of the leather industry was very severe. From a domestic perspective, China's economy is in the process of transforming new and old kinetic energy. The continuous increase in comprehensive costs and high environmental pressures have brought huge challenges to industrial development. In a difficult internal and external environment, the leather industry is under pressure to move forward, and the economy has maintained a relatively stable development trend throughout the year. Although the industry's exports have achieved a slight increase, exports to the United States have declined due to the impact of Sino-US trade frictions. obvious.
Downward pressure increased significantly
Judging from the intuitive medium and light leather prosperity index, the medium and light leather prosperity index for the whole year of 2019 is generally lower, with a monthly average of 87.11. Although slightly higher than the average value of 2018 by 0.16, it is still in a gradual cooling zone.
In 2019, the sales revenue of the main leather industry in China was 109.8199 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.87%.
On the whole, although the overall operation of the industry is relatively stable, the sales revenue of shoe companies, leather garments, furs and products companies have increased slightly year-on-year, but the sales revenue and total profits of companies in the industry have both decreased, and sub-industry regulations such as luggage and leather The sales revenue of Shanghai enterprises has declined, especially in the leather industry, and the downward pressure on the industry has increased significantly.
Exports have recovered for three consecutive years
In 2019, the leather industry achieved an export value of US$86.845 billion, a year-on-year increase of 1.5%. After two consecutive years of decline in industry exports in 2015 and 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 showed a recovery growth in the three years. Especially last year, the Sino-US trade friction had a greater impact on the industry. Under this background, industry exports can maintain a growth trend in 2019. It is not easy, and the increase in exports in 2019 is 1.45 percentage points higher than that in 2018. However, due to the small increase, the export volume has not yet recovered to the high level of US$93.44 billion in 2015.
The increase in exports mainly came from fur clothing and footwear products, of which fur clothing contributed the most to the export growth rate at 0.65%, followed by footwear products, which contributed 0.57% to the growth rate, and leather leather shoes contributed 0.25% to the growth rate. The growth rate of rubber and plastic shoes and boots contributed 0.78%, while the contribution of leather clothing, travel goods and luggage to the growth rate of exports was -0.07% and 0.16%.
Significant decline in exports to the US
In terms of export markets, the EU, the United States, ASEAN, Russia, and Africa are the top five target markets for industry exports, accounting for 66% of the total. Affected by last year’s Sino-US trade friction, the European Union replaced the United States as China’s largest target market. China’s leather product exports to the United States fell by 13.5%, while exports to the European Union and African markets increased by 2.5% and 8% year-on-year. The export value has maintained rapid growth for four consecutive years, with a growth rate of 24.5%. Footwear exports to the United States fell by 5% year-on-year, and exports were worth 11.38 billion U.S. dollars, while exports to ASEAN increased by 24.2% year-on-year.
Since the “Belt and Road” initiative was proposed, China’s leather industry has actively seized opportunities and continued to expand its trade with countries along the “Belt and Road”. In 2019, China’s leather industry’s total exports to countries along the “Belt and Road” reached 284.7. Billion US dollars, an increase of 11.4% year-on-year, accounting for 32.8% of the total leather industry exports.
From the perspective of the main categories of industry exports, the total export volume of shoes and bags in 2019 accounted for 83.1%, which was slightly narrower than the previous year. The export of luggage and bags was US$27.23 billion, basically the same as in 2018, accounting for 31.4%, an increase of 0.5% year-on-year; the export of footwear also achieved growth, with a total export value of US$44.95 billion, accounting for 51.8%, an increase of 1.1% year-on-year. From the perspective of the target market for footwear exports, exports to the largest market, the United States, were 11.38 billion U.S. dollars, down 5% year-on-year, accounting for 25.3%, and accounting for a drop of 1.65 percentage points from the previous year. It can be seen that although footwear products are included in the list of 300 billion products that the United States imposed tariffs on China, the implementation time is relatively late, starting from September 1 and December 15 last year, but the The influence of footwear trade between the two countries has gradually emerged. The EU, the second largest target market for footwear exports, fell by 0.6% year-on-year, accounting for 22.4%. China's footwear exports to ASEAN and Africa have both achieved growth, especially the rapid growth of exports to ASEAN, with a year-on-year increase of 24.2%, accounting for 8.9%; and a year-on-year increase of 6.7% to the African market, accounting for 7.8%.
Small increase in industry imports
For the whole year of 2019, industry imports increased slightly, with a total import value of 15.548 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 2.7%. Among the contributions to import growth, footwear contributed the most to the import growth rate of 5.97%; travel goods and luggage were 4.18%; and raw materials such as semi-finished leather, finished leather and tanned fur contributed to the import growth rate of -3.37% .
For the whole year of 2019, China imported $5.054 billion in shoes and $3.551 billion in imported luggage, accounting for 55.3% of the total, an increase of 21.9% and 21.8% year-on-year respectively. Imported raw hides were US$1.152 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 29.8%; imported semi-finished leathers were US$1.083 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 17.5%; imported finished leather was US$1.425 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 22%. Among the total industry imports, products accounted for 59.85%, which accounted for approximately 8.76 percentage points in 2018, which was higher than the imports of raw materials and equipment for four consecutive years, and the gap is widening, indicating that the industry's import consumption trend is becoming more and more obvious.
The EU and ASEAN are the two main sources of leather industry imports, with imports of 5.38 billion U.S. dollars and 5.12 billion U.S. dollars respectively, accounting for 67.5% of the total. Imports of leather products from ASEAN increased by 22% year-on-year. This is after ASEAN replaced the EU as the largest source of China's leather industry imports in 2017, and was again overtaken by the EU, but the difference in imports between the two is very small.
The epidemic brings challenges to industrial development
At the beginning of 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has spread globally, causing a deep impact on the global leather industry industrial chain.
At present, although the epidemic in China is temporarily under control and enterprise production is gradually recovering in an orderly manner, the situation abroad is more severe. The world economy has shown weak global consumption, reduced investor confidence, financial market turmoil, and lower economic growth expectations. It is difficult for the leather industry to maintain steady growth throughout the year. The sudden epidemic has brought huge challenges and crises to the development of the industry, but there are opportunities in the crisis. The test of the epidemic has increased the speed of the survival of the fittest in the industry and also brought new momentum to the transformation and upgrading of enterprises.