Analysis and Prospect of China's Ink Market

With the rapid development of packaging industry in China in the past ten years, China's ink industry has also been greatly expanded. Ten years ago, all printing companies mainly used offset printing inks, but now they have extended to the pattern of solvent inks, water-based inks, UV inks, silk screen printing inks, and offset printing inks. In particular, in recent years, the Chinese packaging industry has pursued the exquisite printing and also highlighted the concept of environmental protection. Therefore, the environment-friendly water-based ink and UV ink series have achieved unprecedented improvement. According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s ink production in 2005 was 312,300 tons, an increase of 17.20% on the basis of 257,900 tons in 2004. The data shows that China's ink market is developing very rapidly.

First, the basic situation of China's ink industry

From the current situation of ink production enterprises, in recent years, ink-jet Taiwan-funded enterprises with industrial developed countries have developed rapidly, first being Hangzhou ink factory, followed by ink factories in Shanghai, Tianjin, Taiyuan, Shunde, Shenzhen, and Jinan. In cooperation with Taiwan-funded enterprises, there are currently more than 30 joint ventures in the country that have introduced advanced technologies and equipment from abroad. Due to the relatively good technical strength, the output of ink accounts for more than half of the country’s total ink production.

In addition, private ink companies also occupy a certain market, these companies are small, but the mechanism is flexible, low ink prices, sales flexibility, and strong adaptability.

China has formed a backbone enterprise of printing inks represented by Shanghai Peony Ink Co., Ltd., Tianjin Toyo Ink Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Hanghua Ink Co., Ltd., and Peking University Deli Technology Co., Ltd., and has made technological progress for the ink industry in China. Made a great contribution.

From the perspective of ink products, in order to meet the needs of the printing market, China has continued to develop new products relying on scientific and technological progress. The main products are sheetfed quick-drying inks, web offset inks, gravure inks, flexo printing inks, and wire meshes. Printing inks, iron printing inks, ultraviolet curable inks, water-based inks, and anti-counterfeiting inks. Not only are the above-mentioned ink products more and more varieties, reaching more than 50 kinds: and the quality is getting higher and higher. A few companies have obtained inks from the United States Pantone ( Pontone) ink color standard concession. Tianjin Toyo Ink Co., Ltd., Shanghai DIC Ink Co., Ltd., Zhejiang New Oriental Ink Group Co., Ltd., Yunnan Hongta Yuehai Ink Co., Ltd. and other companies have passed ISO9000 series quality system certification. In general, most of the inks produced in China are middle and low grade inks, and supply exceeds demand. Some high-end products and special products need to be imported.

Judging from the management situation, major domestic ink manufacturing companies have introduced foreign advanced technology and production equipment, such as the bead mill produced by the Swiss Buhler company, oblique three-roller mills and filtration equipment. Improve the company's management level and promote the ink company's technological progress and development.

Looking at the demand of the ink market in the future, the market demand for lithographic printing inks will increase steadily. The maintenance ratio will be around 45 to 50%. The growth rate of news web offset printing inks will be faster, and the proportion of letterpress inks will decrease significantly. Among them, the proportion of flexographic inks will increase dramatically; gravure inks are generally in a stable state, but plastic inks and water-based inks are on the rise; screen printing inks are on the rise, mainly due to the use of metal, glass and plastic screen printing inks. Increase; Dedicated and special anti-counterfeiting inks are on the rise overall, especially for printing inks, anti-counterfeiting inks, uv inks, and fluorescent inks.

Second, in 2005, China ink economic indicators analysis

According to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the sales revenue of China's ink product in 2005 was RMB 115.929 billion, which was an increase of 25.6% over the previous year's RMB 9.26659 billion.

In 2005, some areas of the ink manufacturing industry continued to grow steadily. The biggest growth was in packaging printing inks. Among them, the development speed of UV flexo printing and functional inks is the fastest, which also makes the packaging market continue to show a stable development trend.

Despite the rapid development of functional pigments and coatings, UV inks, water-based flexo printing inks, and solvent-based inks in 2005, especially in stand-up pouches and sealable pouches, their development has not been as fast as expected. The development of a better label printing, shrink sleeve and aseptic packaging industry.

At the same time, as many small and medium-sized commercial presses gradually withdrew from the market and the volume of large-scale printing equipment continued to expand, it was expected that the continuous introduction of large-scale printing equipment could reactivate the shrinking sheet-fed and rotary printing markets, but it also caused Overcapacity. It is also believed that these sheetfed and rotary presses can use a combination printing process to provide high value-added printing services.

The entire ink market has grown slowly, but great progress has been made in digital printing technology, showing a strong growth trend. Flint Ink Company believes that the field of digital printing is rapidly expanding, and the packaging field is still the focus of attention as UV technology.

Third, the main gap exists

The overall level of production, quality, and variety of inks in China still has a certain gap compared with advanced countries in the world, and there are deficiencies in printability (such as transferability, water resistance, and high-speed printability, etc.) and product consistency. Sex is not ideal, and it cannot meet the need for high-speed, high-quality printing. Some products still need to be imported. Domestic production of ink raw materials cannot be synchronized with ink production in quality, quantity and variety, and some raw materials still rely on imports. In addition, the development of special special anti-counterfeiting inks is relatively slow, and it still cannot meet the needs of the development of packaging printing and anti-counterfeiting printing. The electronic ink required for digital printing cannot be produced at home.

After joining the WTO, foreign ink companies have entered the Chinese market one after another. The ink companies that set up production bases in China are increasing. China's ink industry is facing fierce competition. For example, Flint of the United States established an ink factory in Daxing, Beijing. News inks will be used as the mixing center for heat-curing inks; Japan’s Daikin Ink Co., Ltd. (DIC) will invest exclusively in the construction of organic pigments and printing ink factories in Nantong, Jiangsu; Japan Sun Ink Co., Ltd. will establish an annual output of 3,000 tons in Suzhou in 2003. The ink factory became the fourth overseas production base of the company following the United States, South Korea, and Taiwan Province of China; Japan Sakata Ink Company also established an annual output of 3,600 tons of ink factory in Shanghai in 2003. The products are mainly gravure inks. The company has established a metal ink factory in Guangzhou. Faced with new challenges, the domestic ink industry must seize opportunities, meet challenges, strengthen technological innovation, management innovation and institutional innovation, and make new contributions to the development of China's ink industry.

Fourth, the development trend of ink industry in the future

From the perspective of the development pattern of the world's inks, it is still Germany, Japan, the United States and a few other developed countries that master the core technologies of ink. These countries are gradually increasing their investment in the Chinese ink industry. The most representative is the Japanese DIC. , TOYO, Switzerland SICPA, Germany HEIDELBERG, HUBER, the United States AKZO NOBEL and other companies. In addition, from the perspective of ink development, solvent inks are transitioning towards alcohol solubility and low solvent; silk screen printing is also attempting water-based screen printing inks. Due to the unique printing method of silk screen printing, screen printing effects on special prints such as glass and PCB circuit boards are currently Is not comparable to other printing methods; UV ink? Currently, we are working on the research and development of UV dual curing. Once successfully launched into the market, this product will be extended to special glass, wood flooring, automotive decoration, high-end electronic products and other printing fields, which will greatly enhance the appearance of the product and chemical properties; The development of offset printing ink is still based on waterless offset printing. It is said that Japan, Germany and other developed countries have already tried this technology in the market. Once waterless offset printing ink really occupies the market, it will eliminate the issue of ink balance and bring printing problems. Annoyance; water-based ink thing, has begun to tilt to the plastics and other food industries, and now the market has begun to use water-based ink main products are disposable beverage cups, instant noodles, bowls of posts and other printed matter, and other water-based UV has also come out, which is currently compared Worrying water market is undoubtedly a shot in the arm. Deaf people engaged in water-based ink for many years, I have tried to do water-based screen printing ink and water-based UV, from the current point of view, water-based screen printing ink is still a certain degree of difficulty. Because at present in China, it seems that the product has not yet officially entered the market, and there is no need for a large number of products to reach the market before the delay, and it always takes a period of time.

Source: China Building Materials Network