Since 2016, a considerable number of outdated foundry plants have been shut down due to strict environmental protection policies and other factors. Since June 2017, a nationwide environmental inspection has raised higher requirements for many foundries. Because of the heating season in North China in winter, many foundry business need to implement the peak production, and overcapacity has been greatly alleviated, especially casting enterprises in non-peak production area have had a substantial increase in orders. It is estimated that the total output of castings in China in 2017 will increase slightly from 47.2 million tons of 2016.

Among different sectors of the industry, the automobile castings accounts for nearly one-third of all kinds of castings. In 2017, China's automobile industry is still the most important contributor to the growth of castings, especially the explosive growth of heavy trucks. Meanwhile, the development trend of lightweight and non-ferrous castings such as aluminum and magnesium alloy for the automobile industry has been maintained a strong growth momentum which has laid the development foundation.

In addition, excavators, loaders and other products in the engineering machinery industry have shown a more substantial recovery growth, so the engineering machinery casting production also has a very significant growth; the demand for machine tool castings has increased slightly; centrifugal cast iron pipe accounts for more than 16% of all kinds of castings in China. With the rapid development of cities and towns construction, the output of centrifugal cast iron pipes is expected to increase by about 10% in 2017; the castings of agricultural machinery and vessels have a slight decline.

The comprehensive competitiveness of the industry continues to improve

Equipment manufacturing industry is the main section of the national industrial restructuring. In order to guide the foundry industry to focus on promoting the transform of scientific and technological achievements, speeding up the structural adjustment, upgrading and innovation-driven development, promoting intelligent transformation of enterprises and enhancing the overall competitiveness of the foundry industry, China Foundry Association has carried out and completed a lot of work in consulting services, quality and technology, international communication, digital and intelligent development, association standard-setting, personnel training and so on.

Take measures to promote industry restructuring and upgrading

Compared with developed and industrialized countries, China’s foundry industry is still lagging behind, especially in industrial structure, quality and efficiency, independent innovation ability, technology and equipment, energy and resource utilization efficiency, and environmental protection. The task of transform and upgrading is urgent and difficult: first, the problem of structural overcapacity is prominent, there is a considerable number of backward production capacity and the consistency and stability of the key castings are in poor quality; second, the ability of independent innovation is weak, some high-end key castings still cannot meet the requirements of domestic major technical equipments, thirdly, the consumption of energy and resources and discharge of pollutants is high, the high investment, low output and low efficiency is still outstanding.

Castings will have a slight growth in 2018

In 2018, the biggest pressure on the foundry industry is still environmental protection and safety. Entrusted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the "Foundry Industrial Air Pollutant Emission Standards" made by China Foundry Association will be released the next year, which will provide the basis for foundry company’s environmental governance. With the local government strengthening the supervision of the foundry industry, a number of imperfect environmental protection facilities and pollutant foundries will exit or will be upgraded according to the environmental norms. Due to the decrease of foundry enterprises and the peak shifting production, it is estimated that the market recovery in various fields at home and abroad will be better than that of this year. The casting order in China will continue to increase and the total output of castings will still increase slightly.