Coal quality analysis instrument goes to high end

As an important part of China's coal analysis and instrumentation industry, coal quality analysis instruments still maintain a good momentum of development as the financial crisis sweeps across the globe. The rapid growth of China's coal analysis instrument market is closely related to the country’s emphasis on food safety, environmental protection, disease prevention and control, product quality supervision, production safety, and monitoring of major natural disasters and basic research.

The overall coal quality analysis instrument industry grew steadily with a year-on-year increase. Both were significantly reduced. According to the data from the China Instrument Industry Association, in 2009, the analytical instruments included coal quality analysis instruments, coal quality analyzers, coal quality analysis equipment, and coal quality analysis instrumentation. The total industrial output value and industrial sales value of process analysis instruments, laboratory analysis instruments, and instrumentation for environmental monitoring have all maintained steady growth, but the year-on-year increase was significantly lower than in 2008. Export delivery values ​​maintained a negative growth except that environmental monitoring equipment maintained a slight increase. Among them, the output value of special instruments for environmental monitoring exceeded 9.2 billion yuan, an increase of 28.85% year-on-year, and the sales value reached 9.121 billion yuan, an increase of 30.82% year-on-year.

The data show that in the analytical instrument industry, the growth rate of special instruments for environmental monitoring is fastest, followed by the development of coal quality analysis instruments, and the industrial process analysis instrument sub-industry also maintains a growth rate higher than the industry average, and the increase in experimental analysis instruments. Obviously lower than the average instrumentation industry. This is mainly because the country has included environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction in its mid- and long-term development plans, introduced some mandatory policies and encouragement policies, and promoted the promotion and application of environmental monitoring instruments. In addition, the market for food safety monitoring equipment has grown significantly in response to the 2008 trihydroamine event.

Imports continued to grow, and exports fell as the overall import and export of the instrument and meter industry in the country showed negative growth. Imports of coal analytical instruments kept growing, and exports decreased year-on-year. Among them, industrial process analysis instruments imported 448 million U.S. dollars, export value was 338 million U.S. dollars; the amount of experimental analytical instruments imported was nearly 2.7 billion U.S. dollars, and the export value was 600 million U.S. dollars. The total import and export deficit of the national instrumentation industry was 10.2 billion U.S. dollars, compared with 2008. A decrease of 170 million U.S. dollars, and an import and export deficit of 5.6 billion U.S. dollars.

The major reason for the large import volume of analytical instruments is that most of the high-end coal quality analytical instruments in use in China are still imported. Due to the high technical requirements of high-end coal quality analytical instruments, large R&D investment, and long research and development cycle, it is a huge challenge for domestic companies. Although in recent years there have emerged high-tech enterprises such as Concentration Technology, Skyray Instruments, General Analysis, East West Electronics, Beijing Nuoc, Snow Dilong, Hebei Xianhe, etc., but domestic companies still generally lack their own technologies. , The lack of original innovation capability of high-end products, the severe lack of R&D investment, the lack of systematic and long-term continuity of work, and the lack of domestic companies’ ability to develop high-end analytical instruments. Scientific research institutes and colleges and universities have poor communication channels between scientific research achievements and the industry. In the short term, they cannot produce high-end analytical instruments that meet the needs of the domestic market.

The decrease in the export of analytical instruments was mainly due to the outbreak of the international financial crisis since the second half of 2008. The economic situation at home and abroad deteriorated drastically, and foreign demand decreased.

Leading companies play a leading role and continue to show strong development forces. In 2009, the overall growth rate of the analytical instrument industry slowed down and exports decreased year-on-year. A few leading companies still maintained a strong momentum of development. Companies such as Concentration Technology, Skyray Instruments, and Beijing-based Naqa, bucked the trend in the global downturn of the analytical and inspection industry, and achieved gratifying results with sales growth rates of 44%, 30%, and 24.4%, respectively.

In particular, Concentration Technology still has the absolute advantage to consolidate the market share ranking first. This was mainly because they seized the opportunity of the country and governments at all levels to attach importance to the development of instrumentation, attached great importance to scientific and technological innovation, continuously strengthened investment in R&D, and developed analytical and measuring instruments with independent intellectual property rights and adapted to market demands. Widely used and achieved significant social and economic benefits.

For a long time, almost 100% of high-end coal quality analytical instruments have been occupied by imports, forcing domestic analytical instrument companies to change their existing R&D production models, and have gradually begun to develop high-end analytical instruments. With the continuous optimization of the market environment and the entry of more foreign coal analysis instrument companies, the competition award for the domestic coal quality analysis instrument market has become fiercer. Therefore, domestic coal analysis instrument manufacturers must face up to the crisis and opportunities in the market environment, and increase investment, continuous innovation, in the development of science and technology on the road to success, to the world-class level.