December 11, 2020
China continues its extraordinary manufacturing growth despite the challenges of 2020. The PMI has remained above 50 for nine consecutive months. SAIC and BYD, two of China’s automotive manufacturers, are well ahead of 2019 sales. FDI into China, despite what one might have predicted, is 4% above last year. For more industry intel and tidbits, read on.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement was signed on Nov. 15, 2020. It is made up of 10 Southeast Asian countries as well as South Korea, China, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The RCEP countries represent 30% of total global population and 29% of the global GDP.
For the first three quarters of 2020, trade between China and the ASEAN countries was $481 billion, a 5% increase from the same period in 2019. China’s direct investment in the ASEAN countries had a YOY increase of 77%, while ASEAN’s direct investment into China increased by 7%. The ASEAN is the largest trading partner of China.
The PMI for November was 52.1 and has now been above 50 for nine consecutive months.
Watch AMT President Doug Woods discuss China opportunities and lessons learned:
BYD Co. Ltd. (Build Your Dreams), who started in 1995 manufacturing cell phone batteries, sold 53,943 automobiles in November. Their YOY sales have increased 31%. They have sold 26,690 electric vehicles so far this year, with 138% YOY growth.
Shanghai Automobile Industry Corp (SAIC) had total sales in November of 420,000 units. Total sales for the year through November was 4,139,800 units! This is a 12% increase from 2019.
The Ministry of Commerce reported that FDI into China through October was $115 billion, which is about 4% higher than the same period in 2019.
Two more major in-person exhibitions successfully took place. Auto Guangzhou, held November 20-29, had a total space 220,000 square feet. Bauma China (construction equipment), held November 24-27 in Shanghai, had 3 million square feet with almost 3,000 exhibitors, including 500 major international brand names.
Below are more data points from AMT’s Shanghai Tech Center’s Market Access and Sales Support (MASS) program. Each point represents specific known investments resulting in manufacturing technology sales opportunities:
Annual output of 1 million units of electrical power tools
Annual output of 3.5 million kits of high-end automotive aluminum alloy components
Annual output of 150,000 units of high-precision servo motors
Annual output of 30,000 sets of elevators and escalators
For more information, contact Fred Qian (fredqian@AMTchina.org).
