TiO2 China Monthly Report 1304

TiO2 China Monthly Report 1304

Summer is coming, but it is still cold for TiO2 industry as price is still declining and de-stocking is underway despite April is traditional booming season for TiO2 purchasing. Export volume of TiO2 during Jan.–Feb. 2013 declined 33.20% compared with that in the same period of 2012. The economic recovery of the U.S. remains fragile and the Euro zone is still dipped in recession. Domestic GDP growth was 7.7% in Q1 2013 according to National Bureau of Statistic of China, which is much lower compared with that in 2012. Besides, growth rate of investment in real estate industry was 20.2% in Q1 2013, far higher than the growth of GDP, indicating China's economy still severely depends on infrastructure investment. Under the circumstance of weak demand and overcapacity, in order to sustain the economic recovery, the government might increase infrastructure spending in the coming months, which might bring a reversal for the current sluggish TiO2 market.

For company dynamic, Henan Billions' profit declined dramatically while its inventory rate soared in 2012, reflecting it faced tough times; Changhe Liu deems it still takes time for domestic TiO2 producers to master chloride process technology; Fuming Hutong was ordered to suspend production due to waste water discharge exceeding standard, highlighting the environmental pollution by the TiO2 industry. In the upstream, Sichuan Lomon cooperates with WTR to guarantee sufficient supply of titanium feedstock for its new TiO2 project with a capacity of 100,000t/a, which might have great significance to the domestic TiO2 manufacturers as most of them lack titanium resource.