New market survey of Chinese ceramic production

Apr 20, 2004

22/04/04 - A market survey of the Chinese ceramic tile and sanitaryware industry, published by the Italian Trade Commission ICE and Acimac and conducted by Beijing Topview Consulting & Trading of Peking, will be unveiled on 28 April in Modena.

The survey, entitled “Ceramic Production in the People’s Republic of China”, is an update of the previous survey conducted in 1999, made necessary due to the rapid development of industrial and productive structures in China, since 1993 the world’s largest ceramic manufacturer.

At the presentation, to be held at 2.00 p.m. in the Michelangelo Business Center in Modena (Viale Virgilio 52/E), managing director of Topview Consulting Calven Luo will outline the contents of the survey, which will be distributed to participants.
The survey begins with a detailed examination of the availability of raw materials, divided up by type and quarrying area.
This is followed by a macroeconomic study of the ceramic industry (output, turnover, imports/exports, production clusters, installed technology), which also includes a survey of the main local tile and sanitaryware manufacturers and a case study of Eagle Brand Holding.

The survey also provides information and guidance on access to the market (distribution and seeking partners, communication channels, competition, etc.) along with forecasts for the future development of the local ceramic industry.

The conference is open to the public and attendance is free of charge. The presentation will be conducted in English with simultaneous interpreting provided in Italian. For information and pre-booking, contact the organising office (Tania Mezzetti, tel. +39 059 826268, email: [email protected]).

The in-focus section contains a short data sheet on the Chinese ceramic industry.china2.jpgThe Chinese ceramic industryThe Chinese ceramic industry

In 2002, Chinese ceramic production amounted to 66.5 billion RMB (about 6.8 billion euro), 13.3% up on 2001. Almost half of this (47%) was generated by the tile industry, followed by tableware (24%), sanitaryware (21%) and technical and artistic ceramic (8%).
In 2002 China produced a total of 1,868.5 million square metres of tiles, 485,400 tons of sanitaryware and 16,470 million pieces of ceramic tableware. In the tile and sanitaryware segments alone there are about 3,500 companies, of which only about a thousand have a turnover higher than 500,000 euro.

The difficulty of surveying this industry derives from its extreme fragmentation, with hundreds of small companies accounting for 54% of all tile production (1 billion sq.m out of a total of 1.86 billion sq.m).

A direct consequence of this is a low quality level, with just 20% of production (374 million square metres) in the high-end segment. However, this percentage is expected to continue to increase steadily as it has done over the past 10 years.