The COVID-19 epidemic has not stopped with the arrival of the new year and is still spreading. Amid the haze that has hit the global economy hard, China’s economy has taken the lead in achieving recovery. Against this background, although the overall operating pressure of my country’s chemical fiber industry is still relatively obvious, the speed of recovery is accelerating.
An outstanding performance is that, with large leading polyester companies as typical representatives, their pace of investment and expansion has not stopped due to the epidemic, but has invariably chosen to buck the trend. And above, continue the strategic layout.
Moreover, there are increasingly clear signs that chemical fiber companies are increasingly enthusiastic about investing in the west. These have become powerful “engines” for the chemical fiber industry to resume operation. From Ningxia to Xining, from Chongqing to Xinjiang, many chemical fiber companies have embarked on investment expansion in the vast world of the west.
In the spandex and polyamide industries, Chongqing has become a strategic location for Huafon Group. In October 2020, Chongqing Huafeng announced that the third phase of its spandex project was completed. At the same time, the nylon 66 integrated project and the fourth phase of the spandex project started. Chongqing has become an important production base and a new growth point for Huafeng Group in recent years.
In the first half of 2020, despite the impact of the epidemic, Huafeng Chongqing Spandex Co., Ltd. achieved operating income of 1.262 billion yuan and net profit of 206 million yuan. With the completion of the third phase of the project, Chongqing Huafeng’s annual spandex production capacity has reached 185,000 tons. The newly started nylon 66 integrated project is a key strategic project of Huafon Group during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period. After completion, it is expected to achieve an annual output value of 12 billion yuan and profits and taxes of 1.5 billion yuan. It will create 1,500 new jobs and will also Provide strong support for Chongqing Huafeng to achieve the goal of annual output value exceeding 30 billion yuan.
What is particularly noteworthy is that in the past two or three years, many “big brother” polyester companies have begun to take steps to “go westward”. From Qinzhou, Guangxi to Xinjiang, the expansion of polyester “big guys” has been left behind. Tongkun has successively invested in Guangxi and Xinjiang.
In August 2019, the Guangxi Qinzhou Municipal Government and Tongkun Group signed the “Tongkun Qinzhou Beibu Gulf Green Petrochemical Integrated Industrial Base Project Investment Contract” in Nanning. Tongkun Group will invest approximately 51 billion yuan to build an integrated project in Qinzhou with an annual output of 2.8 million tons of aromatics and 5 million tons of PTA. In December 2019, the first phase of the project, with an annual output of 600,000 tons of styrene, started construction in the Sandun area of Qinzhou Port. After the integrated project is put into operation, it will achieve an annual output value of approximately 65 billion yuan.
In November 2020, the Alar City of the First Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps held a signing ceremony for the Alar Tongkun Textile Industrial Park project. The industrial park plans to invest a total of 11 billion yuan and will build an annual output of 1 million tons of fiber and supporting projects such as printing and dyeing, weaving, and thermoelectricity. Alar is located in the core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt and is an important node connecting my country to the Central Asian Economic Zone.
Hengyi also has a presence in Qinzhou, Guangxi. In July 2019, Hengyi and the Qinzhou Municipal Government signed an investment cooperation agreement for a high-end green chemical and chemical fiber integration project in Nanning. According to the agreement, Hengyi will build “Belt and Road” cross-regional cooperation and high-end green chemical and chemical fiber integration projects for the ASEAN market in Qinzhou, including an annual output of 1.2 million tons of caprolactam-polyamide industry integration projects. The total investment of the project is about 45 billion yuan. After the entire project is completed, it is expected to achieve an annual output value of about 50 billion yuan and a tax revenue of about 4.5 billion yuan.
Even foreign companies are “eyeing” China’s west. On December 29, 2020, South Korea’s Hyosung Group announced that it will build a new spandex project with an annual output of 360,000 tons in Ningdong Energy and Chemical Base, Ningxia. In fact, Ningxia Ningdong Energy and Chemical Industry Base has already formed a certain spandex agglomeration effect. This is another spandex production base outside Yantai of Taihe New Materials, one of my country’s leading spandex companies. Ningxia Ningdong Taihe New Material Co., Ltd., established in December 2017, mainly produces and sells spandex. It is located in Ningxia Ningdong Energy and Chemical Industry Base. In the first half of 2020, it achieved revenue of 285 million yuan and a net profit of 5.4847 million yuan.
Relevant statistics show that as of the end of 2020, my country’s total spandex production capacity was approximately 870,000 tons. In the next few years, as Hyosung Group’s new spandex project in Ningxia is completed and put into operation, the spandex industry agglomeration effect of Ningxia Ningdong Chemical Base will be further highlighted and it will become my country’s leading spandex production base.
From the actual situation, the chemical fiber industry in the eastern and southeastern coastal areas of my country has experienced rapid development for more than 40 years of reform and opening up. At this stage, it is increasingly faced with labor difficulties and labor shortages. The comprehensive cost of energy, water, electricity and other energy sources is rising year by year. The vast central and western regions have certain preferences and preferences for investment in major projects in terms of land, taxation, energy, electricity prices, investment policies and other aspects, and labor costs are also lower. Moreover, choosing to deploy in some important port cities in the western region will also help large polyester companies further expand into markets along the “Belt and Road”.
It is foreseeable that with the opening of the “14th Five-Year Plan”, the western region will attract more leading chemical fiber companies in the next 5 years or even the next 10 years. Investment in new projects and industrial bases will become a powerful “engine” driving my country’s chemical fiber industry to achieve a new round of development.
At the same time, as one after another major petrochemical and chemical fiber projects are implemented and put into production, they will also become the mainstay of the western region’s economy.�The “ballast stone” and “booster” to accelerate take-off. </p
