Source: www.customs.gov.cn
PTA is an important material for chemical fiber industry. According to statistics of the customs, in the first three quarters of this year, China’s PTA import accumulates to 3.776 million ton, with a value of USD 3.7 billion, and a year-on-year decrease (same in the following) of 20% and 12.1%, the average import is USD 980.2/ton, increased by 9.9%. The import in September is 399,000 ton, with a drop of 21.4%, and the average import price is USD 1,009/ton.
In the first 3 quarters, China’s PTA import has the following features:
I. The general trade import drops by large margin, and processing trade import grows quickly. In the first 3 quarters, China’s PTA general trade import is 2.029 million ton, dropped by 38.3%, accounting for 53.7% of China’s PTA total import in the same period; the processing trade import is 1.348 million ton, with a growth of 18.3%, accounting for 35.7%.
II. The import of foreign-funded enterprise grows steadily, and the import of private enterprise drops obviously. In the first 3 quarters, China has imported 1.727 million tons of PTA via foreign-funded enterprise, increased by 1.5%; private enterprise imported 1.065 million ton, dropped by 11.9%. In the same period, state-owned enterprise imported 659,000 ton, dropped by 36.3%; collective enterprise imported 324,000 ton, dropped by 58%.
III. South Korea, Taiwan and ASEAN countries are listed as the top 3 of import source. In the first 3 quarters, China imported 1.855 million tons of PTA from South Korea, with a growth of 15.4%; 1,328 million ton is imported from Taiwan province, with a drop of 0.5%; 418,000 ton is imported from ASEAN countries, with a drop of 65.9%; the total import from the above three places accounts for 95.4% of the total PTA import volume in China.
Along with the continuous production increase in domestic PTA trade, the output of PTA in China has reached 10.50 million ton in 2007, so that the long-term reliance on import has been released. This year, influenced by the depression of domestic textile and garment trade, the downstream product of PTA, polyester does not have much demand; however the PTA import scale in China is still large. This is closely related with the PTA import financing prevailing in Zhejiang in recent year. Since imported PTA can adopt letter of credit, and the total payment be made after 90 days of opening L/C, the importer has tight money, and difficulty in financing, and they will immediately transfer to other enterprise after import of PTA to get the money, so as to supplement flow capital by means of getting cash, this has intensified the conflict that supply is larger than demand on domestic PTA market, leading to the acute dropping of PTA in China. On October 21, the merchandise price of PTA in Zhengzhou Future Exchange is 5,800-5,900 yuan/ton, equivalent to USD 849-864/ton, and the price has dropped by 35%since beginning of July. At the end of September, the largest PTA producer in Asia, Zhejiang Hualian Sunshine Petro-Chemical Co., Ltd was forced to stop production due to severe shortage of flow capital, and the accumulative debt is as high as 9.3 billion yuan, while on domestic market, PTA price is seriously lower than production cost, this is the main reason that the enterprise continuously operates with debt.
Suggestion (omitted)
