Ink Market Analysis and Prospects

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, printing companies mainly used offset printing inks, and now they have extended to the pattern of solvent inks, water-based inks, UV inks, screen printing inks, and offset inks. In particular, in recent years, the Chinese packaging industry has been pursuing exquisite printing while also highlighting 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 302.3 thousand tons, which was an increase of 17.20% on the basis of 2004. The data shows that the development of the ink market in China is very rapid.

The basic situation of China's ink industry

From the current situation of ink production enterprises, in recent years, ink Taiwan-funded enterprises have developed rapidly, the earliest being the Hangzhou ink factory, followed by ink factories in Shanghai, Tianjin, Taiyuan, Shunde, Shenzhen and Jinan, etc., which have also started cooperation with Taiwan-funded enterprises. . At present, there are more than 30 joint ventures in the country that have introduced advanced technology and equipment from abroad. Due to the relatively good technical strength, the output of ink accounts for more than half of the total ink production in the country.

In addition, private ink companies also occupy a certain market. These companies are small, but they have flexible mechanisms, low ink prices, flexible sales, and strong adaptability.

China has formed a backbone of ink production companies represented by Shanghai Peony Ink Co., Ltd., Tianjin Toyo Ink Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Hanghua Ink Co., Ltd., and Peking University Deli Technology Co., Ltd. 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 offset fast drying inks, web offset inks, gravure inks, flexo printing inks, and screens. Printing inks, printing inks, UV curing inks, water-based inks, security inks, etc. The above-mentioned ink products not only have more and more varieties and have reached more than 50 kinds, but also have higher and higher quality. A few companies have ink inks that have obtained the concession rights of the United States Pantone ink color standard. 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 still need to rely on imports.

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

Looking at the demand of the ink market in the future, the market demand for lithographic printing inks will increase steadily, maintaining a ratio of around 45% to 50%, of which news web offset inks will grow faster, and the proportion of letterpress inks will drop significantly. However, 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. Volume increase; Dedicated and special anti-counterfeit inks are on the rise overall, especially for printing inks, anti-counterfeit inks, UV inks, and fluorescent inks.

Analysis on the Completion of China's Ink Economic Indicators in 2005

According to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the sales revenue of China's ink products in 2005 was RMB 115.9927 billion, which was an increase of 25.6% on the basis of RMB 9,236.59 million in 2004.

In 2005, certain areas of the ink manufacturing industry continued to grow steadily. The biggest growth was in packaging printing inks. Among them, UV flexo packaging printing inks and functional inks are developing at the fastest speed, which also makes the packaging market continue to show a stable development trend. Despite the rapid development of functional pigments and coatings, UV blending inks, water-based flexo printing inks, and solvent-based inks in 2005

The rapid development, especially in the vertical bag and sealable bag products, but its development is not as fast as expected, has developed a better label printing, shrink sleeve and aseptic packaging industry.

At the same time, as many small and medium-sized commercial printers 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 already shrinking sheet-fed and rotary printing markets, but at the same time, Causes 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.

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 terms of quality, quantity, and variety. 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 number of ink companies that set up production bases in China is increasing, and China's ink industry is facing fierce competition. For example, Flint of the United States established an ink factory in Daxing, Beijing. Newsprint inks will become the center of plastisol ink mixing; Japan Daikin Ink Co., Ltd. (DIC) will establish a wholly-owned organic pigment and printing ink factory 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.

The development trend of ink industry in the future

From the perspective of the world's ink development, it is still Germany, Japan, the United States, and a few other developed countries that master the core ink technologies. 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 AKZonOBEL and other companies. In addition, from the perspective of ink development, solvent inks are transitioning toward alcohol solubility and low solvent; 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 It is incomparable to other printing methods; UV inks are currently working on the research and development of UV dual curing. Once the product is successfully put on the market, it will be extended to special glass, wood flooring, automotive decoration, high-end electronic products and other printing fields. , This will greatly enhance the appearance of the product grade and chemical properties; As for the development of offset printing ink is still the development direction of waterless offset printing, it is said that Japan, Germany and other developed countries have already tried this technology in the market, once the waterless offset printing ink Occupy the market, will eliminate the trouble caused by the ink balance problem to printing; water-based ink, has begun to tilt to the plastics and other food industries, and now the market has begun to use water-based ink products are disposable beverage cups, instant noodles bowl posts And other publications, other water-based UVs have also been published, which is currently relatively affordable. The water market is undoubtedly a shot in the arm.

Source: China Packaging News