Haitian: China's injection molding machine market recovers moderately

Giant Haitian Group, the injection molding machine maker, said that China's press market showed a mild recovery and Haitian's first-half revenue rose by 14% to RMB 3.62 billion, but Haitian is cautious in describing actual recovery efforts.

China's plastics machinery market declined slightly last year, a drop of 3.5%. However, Haitian International stated in its report submitted to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on August 19th that the market may improve.

Zhang Jianming, president of Haitian International, said that the Chinese injection molding machine market has stabilized, with a slight recovery in early 2013. However, he pointed out that the market is still far from the level of full recovery, and macroeconomic indicators are still not optimistic.

Haitian also attributes its sales growth to the second-generation Mars, Venus and Jupiter machines.

Haitian’s profit for the first half of the year climbed 17% to RMB 568.2 million, setting Haitian’s second-highest mid-year performance in history.

Headquartered in Ningbo, Zhejiang, Haitian is the largest and leading global injection molding machine manufacturer in China.

Haitian said that China is an important growth engine. In the first half of this year, sales in the domestic market climbed 18.9% compared to the same period in 2012 to 2.47 billion yuan.

Haitian did not worry too much about the slowdown in China's macroeconomic growth, and stated that although people are generally concerned that the slowdown in GDP growth will weaken the demand for injection molding machines, it is believed that the government's move to promote consumer growth to rebalancing the economy will affect the injection molding machine. Development has a positive impact.

The injection molding machinery industry has been driven by the progress of urbanization and higher income levels, which will push up the consumption of plastic materials, Haitian said.

Exports climbed 4.5% to 1.057 billion yuan. Haitian said that this number is its best half year performance.

Haitian said that the markets in Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the United States all have good growth, while Europe and emerging markets, such as Brazil and Turkey, have stagnated.

Exports to the Middle East and Africa have grown significantly, albeit on a smaller base. In the export sales of the first half of 2013, the Middle East accounted for 9.8%, compared with 4.5% in the first half of 2012. Similarly, Africa accounted for 7.8% of export sales in the first half of this year, compared with 5.3% in the same period of last year.

Haitian said that from a global perspective, the market outlook is difficult to predict.

Zhang Jianming said that although the market has shown favorable signs of initial recovery, the current global economy is still filled with uncertainties. However, Haitian said that even if the current market conditions continue, Haitian is still expected to exceed the sales record set in 2010 this year.

Haitian also said that the two new factories previously announced in Ningbo are under construction.