This year’s CAC event took place at a shiny new venue, the Shanghai New International Expo Center, and it delivered as promised: a far larger, more open and comfortable space for buyers and sellers to do business, network and scope out new partners.
穿过一栋又一栋被 850 多家参展商吞噬的巨大建筑——这是展位的长城，挤满了来自世界各地的与会者——暗示着自 CAC 14 年前首次亮相以来中国农化市场的爆炸式增长.
在贸易展之前由 CCPIT CHEM 组织的会议上，行业专家分享了他们对巴西、泰国、欧盟和中国等发达市场和新兴市场作物保护价值链的过去、现在和未来的见解。
Agchem expert Hu Xiaoxing of the China National Chemical Information Center consultancy (CNCIC) addressed tough challenges the Chinese are facing, explaining that they have lost market share to larger overseas companies in recent years because of a tendency to be too passive in developing new markets. Competitors elsewhere are actively registering products, taking their pick among the growing list of Chinese suppliers, which are forced to keep lowering their prices. “Quality should be the foundation. We need to take initiative to register our products overseas,” she urged.
But the biggest reason Chinese players have lagged multinationals in profit performance is underinvestment in R&D. “Syngenta and Bayer invested hundreds of millions of dollars from 2009 to 2011, amounting to 8% to 10% of revenue, while China invested 1% to no more than 2% in R&D,” Hu said.
Reversing this trend won’t be easy, but improving processes and developing cleaner environmental technologies for products like glyphosate, imidacloprid and chlorpyrifos, along with equipment automation levels, can elevate China’s status above being the crop protection market’s famous low-cost generic player.
“Because of genetically modified seed developments and the shortage of energy in the world, we can’t do away with glyphosate. Its future is still promising,” Hu added. She offered as examples the strides made in treating wastewater. “As long as we try to innovate, no matter how old or new the products, we can raise the added value of products, increase competitiveness and achieve greater success in imports and exports.”
中国准备好迎接巴西了吗？
Flavio Hirata, agronomist and AllierBrasil partner, said 2012 “marked a very clear change” in how Chinese manufacturers perceive the Brazilian market, as notorious for its high barriers to entry as the Chinese have been in the past for its submission packages attached to addresses and companies of questionable existence.
“There is a new impulse of Chinese companies to access the Brazilian pesticide market,” Hirata said. “Many companies go to Brazil without any strategy. They think, ‘keep moving with registration and when the problem appears we’ll face it.’ The chances to fail are high. Start from others’ mistakes and save time and money, choose the right connections and the right distributors. The Brazilian pesticide market is completely different than any other market in the world.”
Hirata said 2013 sales in Brazil are expected to be $10.6 billion versus $9.38 billion in 2012. He noted a “very strong shortage” from suppliers in China last year.
出席 CAC 的还有 Phillips McDougall 的行业资深人士 Matthew Phillips，他对 2013 年农用化学品的看法大多是积极的，因为高小麦和其他商品价格推动了作物保护支出。预计 2013 年草甘膦价格将继续保持稳定。但是，由于美国和欧洲的恶劣天气，去年未使用的产品积压可能会阻碍价格上涨。
For agchem players, the list of complicating factors is growing. Fast-rising energy costs eat up growers’ crop protection dollars, and the harsh regulatory environment is tightening the reins on R&D spending. Research in seed and traits has taken a bigger piece of the pie. In 2000, almost 70 molecules were in development, compared with only 30 in 2011.
不可避免的事情已经发生：新活性成分的减少促使支出转向保护现有化学品的知识产权。
It was a common theme heard at CAC that Phillips reiterated: It is those players investing in new formulations that will be in a position to compete effectively. “If you are making technical products you are stuck at the bottom,” he said. Phillips expects about 2.2% growth per year in the crop protection market through 2016.