Recently, China merchants industrial research institute released the growth rate of the number and amount of imported metal processing machine tools in China from January to November 2018.Overall, from January to May 2018, the number and amount of imported metal processing machine tools in China both exceeded the same period of last year.From June to September, the import quantity and import amount of metal processing machine tools showed a downward trend, of which the import volume of China's metal processing machine tools in November 2018 decreased by 30.5% year on year.

Data shows that from January to June, the number of imported metal processing machine tools in China is 10242, 4935, 10958, 8726, 9120, 7174(unit: Taiwan), compared with the same period last year, respectively increased by 96.50%, 1.2%, 68.3%, 14.6%, 26.8, -29.8%.From January to June, the amount of imported metal processing machine tools in China was 954.9, 564.1, 1040.9, 933.2, 970, 785.7(unit: million us dollars), which increased by 115.8%, 9.1%, 64.3%, 30.1%, 45% and -8.8% respectively compared with the same period of last year.

From July to November, the number of imported metal processing machine tools in China was 6328, 6329, 7589, 5253, 5236(unit: Taiwan), which increased by -31.3%, -43.6%, -13%, 11.7% and -30.5% respectively compared with the same period last year.From January to June, the amount of imported metal processing machine tools in China was 812.8, 788.6, 853.4, 690.9, 640.2(unit: million us dollars), 0.7%, -13.8%, -10.3%, -9%, -19.3%, respectively, compared with the same period last year.

According to the above data, from January to May 2018, compared with the same period of last year, the number and amount of imported metal processing machine tools increased significantly.From June, the metal processing machine tool imports tend to cool, compared with the same period last year, the overall trend of decline.This trend is basically consistent with the import trend of Japanese machine tools in China.Japan's external demand (exports) fell 4.4 percent in August from a year earlier, the first year-on-year decline in 21 months, the nikkei reported on Sept. 13.Japan's export orders to China fell for the seventh straight month from a year earlier to 18.9 billion yen, down 22.0% from a year earlier, the Japan machine tool industry association said on Oct. 23.In November, the Japanese economic news reported that the export orders of Japanese machine tools to China fell by a third year-on-year in October, and the overall export share dropped by 23 months.

China's imports of metal processing machine tools have slowed, which has had a significant impact on Japan and other large machine tool exporters.What makes the first half of the machine tool import market hot, and the second half of the cold?The author thinks there are the following reasons.

Metal processing machine tool imports grew rapidly in the first half of the year, mainly due to two reasons.First, the made in China 2025 and other relevant policies have driven the development of the manufacturing industry and increased investment in relevant fields.Second, mobile phones, cars and other important downstream development of metal processing machine tools, leading to the demand for related machine tools.Data show that in the first half of 2018, China's automobile production and sales maintained a relatively stable growth rate, and 3C digital fields, including smart phones, also showed a high market demand for machine tools.

China's metal processing machine tool imports in the second half of the year than in the first half and the same period last year turned cold, the main reasons are: first, the consumer market returned to normal.Metal processing machine tool imports after nearly half a year of high level growth, market demand appears to be weak is a normal phenomenon.Second, China's economic growth has slowed.Under the circumstance that the economic environment tends to be stable, the capital turnover of enterprises also slows down correspondingly, resulting in the decrease of enthusiasm for equipment investment.Third, automobile, mobile phone and other important downstream demand for metal processing machine tools.Data showed that China's auto production and sales began to decline in July from a year earlier, while the demand for mobile phone-related fields also declined, which also contributed to the decline of Japanese machine tool exports to China.Fourth, the impact of a trade war between China and the United States.The escalating trade war has had an impact on many industries, including the machine tool industry. The operational risks of enterprises have increased, and many enterprises have turned a wait-and-see attitude towards investment.

As an important category of machine tools, metal processing machine tools account for more than 50% of the global distribution of machine tools.Therefore, the import trend of metal processing machine tool can also reflect the change of machine tool import in China since 2018.From another perspective, we can also see the development trend of China's machine tool industry in 2018 from the import data of machine tools.

According to the industrial operation of China machine tool industry association from January to October, the main business income and profit of the whole industry and various sub-industries are still in the growth range, but the growth continues the shrinking trend since the second half of the year, the overall operation of the machine tool industry is slowing down, the market demand continues to decline, increasing downward pressure.It can be seen that not only machine tool imports in the second half of the cold, the whole machine tool industry in the second half of the market performance is not very optimistic.

Overall, China's machine tool market has maintained a warming trend, the year is still expected to achieve small growth.As for the specific situation of machine tool import and export in 2018, further analysis can only be made after the data of December are released.