million and 23.11 million, down 9.0% and 9.1% year-on-year. Meanwhile, the production and sales of new- energy vehicles rose 11.7% and 10.1%, respectively, over the same period last year. The development of new-energy vehicles will affect the composition of the casting market. From the overall situation of this


year, the output value of automotive casting is close to that of 2018, which is still expected to be $0.35 billion. It is not easy to predict the future situation.


General Commercial Casting The general commercial castings in Mainland China are still mainly exported. At present, the most serious problem is the international market environment. The ongoing trade dispute between China and the United States has undermined the openness of global markets and increased international trade uncertainty. This directly affected the export of general commercial castings in 2019, whose output value was 1.947 Billion, a decline of about 10% compared with that in 2018.


In addition to market changes, rising labor costs and environmental pressures have also been the problems. Many enterprises continue to carry out equipment the


degree


transformation, of


mechanization


improving and


reducing labor. On the other hand, more environmental protection equipment are installed to meet stricter environmental standards.


In Mainland China, general


commercial castings account for the largest proportion of investment casting output. Most foundries of this sector have been established in the past 30 years. In the process of participating in global market competition, some of them have formed the strong ability to resist market risks. Through continuous transformation and improvement of technology and management level, those foundries have won the trust of


Figure 2: Output Value By Casting Sectors


customers and have strong economic strength to further improve production conditions. But at the same time, there are also some foundries was eliminated in the fierce market competition. Such adjustment is also a good thing for the investment casting industrial optimization in Mainland China.


After 60 years of development,


China’s investment casting industry is facing a new situation. The domestic market and the demand for high value- added castings continue to grow, and the competitive pressure in the global market


continues to increase. The


longer future is hard to predict. But two factors that underpin the development of China’s investment casting industry are important. One is that China has the most complete industrial system in the world. Second, China has the largest engineering education. All these will support the healthy development of investment casting industry in Mainland China.


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