A novel coronavirus pneumonia was released by the National Bureau of statistics in the first quarter of the year. Despite the impact of the new crown pneumonia, China’s GDP decreased by 6.8% in the first quarter.

Since March, industrial production has recovered significantly, and the industrial economy has changed positively.

According to the data released by the General Administration of customs, the total import and export value of China’s goods trade in the first quarter decreased by 6.4% over the same period last year, of which the export value decreased by 11.4% and 0.7%. It is worth our special attention that ASEAN has become China’s largest trading partner over the EU.
In the first quarter, China’s import and export to ASEAN increased by 6.1%, accounting for 15.1% of China’s total foreign trade value. ASEAN became China’s largest trading partner; the import and export to the EU decreased by 10.4%; the import and export to the United States decreased by 18.3%; and the import and export to Japan decreased by 8.1%.
In addition, one belt, one road, and 3.2% countries, which are higher than the total growth rate, are 9.6 percentage points higher. It’s worth noting that in the first quarter, China EU trains opened 1941 trains, an increase of 15% year on year, which effectively guaranteed China’s import and export trade to countries along the line during the epidemic period.
The spread of the novel coronavirus pneumonia has seriously affected the world economy. According to the latest forecast of the International Monetary Fund, the global economy will decline, with a negative growth of 3% in 2020; while China’s economy is expected to grow positively, with a growth of 1.2% in 2020 and 9.2% in 2021.
With the gradual improvement of the global epidemic situation and the acceleration of China’s resumption of work and production, and under the dual effect of policy support and further strengthening of investment project construction, China’s economy is expected to gradually return to the level of economic growth before the epidemic in the third quarter.
From the perspective of the stone industry, since the middle of February 2020, stone enterprises have gradually resumed production. With the effective control of the domestic epidemic situation, the pace of enterprises returning to work is gradually accelerating. As of April 15, the return rate of Enterprises above Designated Size in the stone industry has reached 90%, and the capacity recovery rate is about 50%. From the perspective of the industry as a whole, the recovery rate of small and medium-sized enterprises is far lower than that of Enterprises above Designated Size, and there are large regional and industry differences. In the first stage of resumption of production, enterprises mainly focus on export orders. However, since March, due to the outbreak in Europe, America and other countries, the exchange of people and goods between countries has been greatly affected, and many export enterprises have returned to the state of production suspension.
According to the statistical data, in the first quarter, the output of marble plate of Enterprises above designated size was 60.89 million square meters, down 79.0% over the same period of last year; the output of granite stone plate was 65.81 million square meters, down 29.0% over the same period of last year. In the first two months of this year, the main business income of enterprises of scale decreased by 29.7% over the same period of last year, and the total profit decreased by 33.06% over the same period of last year.
From January to February 2020, the import of stone materials reached 1.99 million tons, down 9.3% year-on-year; among them, the import of raw materials decreased 11.1% year-on-year, the import of products increased 47.8% year-on-year; the import of raw materials accounted for 94.5% of the total import.
From January to February 2020, the export of stone materials reached 900000 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 30.7%; among them, the export of large plates and products decreased by 29.4% and the export of waste materials decreased by 48.0% year-on-year; the export of large plates and products accounted for 95.0% of the total export.
From January to February 2020, the import of artificial stone is 3970 tons, down 30.7% year on year; the export of artificial stone is 8350 tons, up 15.7% year on year.
We note that despite the unprecedented difficulties faced by the industry, many enterprises are still on the road of transformation and upgrading, making breakthroughs in green mines, clean production, technological innovation and product innovation.
Opportunities and challenges coexist all the time. Stone enterprises should actively catch the positive changes in domestic and foreign markets, speed up brand building, create a “specialized, refined, special and new” core competitiveness, and achieve high-quality development of enterprises.