1. The United States' "double anti-dumping" against our passenger and light truck tires
On June 3, the United Steelworkers (USW) applied to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to initiate anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations on passenger and light truck tires from China, and accused the dumping margin of 60.15% and the subsidy margin of 25.73%. On November 24, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the preliminary anti-subsidy ruling results; on December 22, it revised the preliminary anti-subsidy tariff rate. The preliminary ruling rates of the two mandatory respondent companies were 11.74% and 12.5% ​​respectively, and the rest of the companies were 12.03%; Shandong Yongsheng Rubber Group Co., Ltd. received a punitive tariff of 81.29%. According to statistics from China Customs, the delivery value of the products involved in China's exports to the United States was US$3.337 billion, which is the largest amount of trade relief measures suffered by the tire industry so far, involving thousands of domestic companies, including 68 production companies, and will affect nearly one million industrial workers in China's tire and related industries.
2. Import tariffs on natural rubber increased

From January 1, 2015, the provisional tariff rate on natural rubber imports in China will be adjusted from 20% or 1,200 yuan/ton to 20% or 1,500 yuan/ton, an increase of 300 yuan/ton; the provisional tariff rate on imported natural latex will be adjusted from 10% or 720 yuan/ton to 10% or 900 yuan/ton, an increase of 180 yuan/ton. According to the estimated import volume of natural rubber for general trade in 2013 of about 350,000 tons, rubber-using enterprises will increase their annual cost expenditure by 105 million yuan. However, due to the increase in import tariffs, rubber-using enterprises such as tires may import more natural rubber for processing trade, and will be more dependent on exports. The result is that it is easy to cause more trade frictions, and secondly, it will suppress domestic rubber-using enterprises at the bottom of the manufacturing chain.

3. The national standard for composite rubber reduces the raw rubber content index

On August 22, the National Standardization Administration announced the "General Technical Specifications for Composite Rubber" (draft for comments), which stipulates that the raw rubber content in composite rubber shall not exceed 88% (mass fraction), which is far from the natural rubber content of 95% to 99.5% stipulated in the "Self-discipline Standards for Composite Rubber" formulated by the China Rubber Industry Association in 2006. It is understood that if this standard is officially implemented, it means that the door to composite rubber imports will be closed. If all composite rubber is converted to general trade natural rubber imports, based on an annual import of 1.5 million tons of natural rubber, rubber-using companies will need to spend an additional 2.25 billion yuan. At the same time, it will also force rubber-using companies such as tires to import more processing trade natural rubber, which is likely to lead to new trade frictions and prevent companies from getting rid of the situation at the bottom of the manufacturing chain.

4. "Tire Industry Access Conditions" issued

On September 17, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued the "Tire Industry Access Conditions" and implemented it on October 1. The "Conditions" emphasizes energy conservation and environmental protection, and puts forward hard indicators such as energy consumption, resource consumption and pollutant emissions for tire companies; encourages the development of energy-saving, environmentally friendly and safe green tires; encourages the use of independent intellectual property technologies in new, modified and expanded tire projects; stipulates that the quality of tire products must meet relevant standards, etc. At present, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is formulating the announcement management measures for access conditions, and will conduct announcement management for tire companies. The release of this policy will play a good role in promoting the elimination of backward production capacity and standardizing the development of the tire industry.
5. China Rubber Industry Association Releases "Green Tire Technical Specifications"
On February 24, the China Rubber Industry Association released the "Green Tire Technical Specifications" and began trial implementation on March 1. This is the first self-discipline standard for the green tire industry in my country. The standard standardizes the definition of green tires, puts forward green tire product performance requirements, raw material usage requirements, and recommends green tire production process technology. The "Specifications" lays the foundation for my country to implement the tire labeling system in the next step. In order to promote the industrialization of green tires, the China Rubber Industry Association has established the "Green Tire Industrialization Promotion Working Committee" and the "Green Tire Technical Support Center", and will certify tire testing institutions, refine the green tire raw material guidelines, and finally realize the tire labeling system.
6. The industry development has entered the "new normal" of speed shifting and falling back
In 2014, the basic situation of China's rubber industry development is: production continues to grow, sales prices continue to fall; export volume increases, export delivery value growth rate declines; rubber raw material prices remain low, factor costs continue to rise; profits grow, but the growth rate continues to fall back. The entire industry has entered the "new normal" of speed shifting and falling back, from the high-speed growth of about 20% in the past to the single-digit growth of less than 5% for three consecutive years. According to statistics from the China Rubber Industry Association, in the first three quarters, the industry's industrial output value at current prices increased by 3.67% year-on-year, sales revenue decreased by 0.18% year-on-year, export delivery value increased by 1.39% year-on-year, and the export rate (value) decreased by 0.64 percentage points year-on-year. Some problems that were covered up during the period of rapid growth have been exposed, such as structural overcapacity and serious product homogeneity. At the same time, under the "new normal", the industry will also accelerate structural adjustment, innovation-driven and green development.
7. "Research on the Development Strategy of China's Rubber Industry Power" was officially released
On October 16, the China Rubber Industry Association officially released the "Research on the Development Strategy of China's Rubber Industry Power". The book is rich in content, with authoritative and detailed data, systematically summarizing the achievements of the rubber industry in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" and the early "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", and taking the contemporary rubber industry technology level as the goal, and comparing with international technology, it proposes the strategic goals and measures for the development of China's rubber industry power in the next 5 to 10 years. For the first time, this book specifically quantified the strategic goals of a strong country and drew a roadmap for a strong rubber industry. It is a compass for China to become a world rubber industry power and will effectively promote the pace of building a strong rubber industry in China.
8. Tire enterprise investment slows down and projects are delayed

With the slowdown in domestic and foreign market demand, the continuous decline in raw material and product prices, and the pressure of the US "double anti-dumping" on Chinese tires, the operating difficulties of the tire industry in the second half of the year have increased significantly. The exports of products involved in the "double anti-dumping" case to the United States have declined month by month. The industry's general operating rate is not high, with most companies between 70% and 80%. Inventory pressure has increased, causing the investment in tire projects, which has been hot in recent years, to slow down for the first time, and some projects have been suspended or terminated. This situation also affects equipment suppliers. A large number of equipment are piled up in the hands of equipment suppliers, and the orders of rubber machinery companies in 2015 have dropped significantly. In addition, due to market and inventory pressure, as well as the expectation of falling tire prices, the tire marketing industry has also entered a difficult year. Under this environment, domestic tire companies have accelerated their pace of going global. Linglong, Zhongce, Sailun and other companies have accelerated the construction progress of Southeast Asian projects.
9. Promoting informatization and environmental protection and energy conservation has become the direction

Due to the increasingly stringent national environmental protection requirements and the continuous increase in the cost of domestic basic factors, enterprises in rubber and related supporting industries have increased the development of safe and environmentally friendly process equipment and automation and informatization transformation. For example, the waste rubber comprehensive utilization industry has been actively promoting the green upgrade of rubber powder and reclaimed rubber production processes, equipment and raw materials, and has determined the three major goals of eliminating the "three small pieces" and coal tar and changing the desulfurization method. At the same time, it has actively promoted the formulation of clean production and green production standards. Rubber additives, skeleton materials, bicycle tires and other industries are also actively promoting automation upgrades and informatization transformation. For example, rubber additive manufacturers have started closed continuous production process transformation and central control automation.

10. Rubber prices continue to fall

2014 was a difficult year for natural rubber producers and traders. Natural rubber is in a global oversupply situation, and prices continue to be sluggish, falling back to the level of the international financial crisis in 2008, and producers and traders are losing money. The production capacity of synthetic rubber is also significantly higher than the actual demand. The utilization rates of styrene-butadiene rubber and butadiene rubber have fallen to 53% and 68% respectively, and the utilization rates of isoprene rubber have dropped to 15%. Synthetic rubber enterprises are facing difficulties in production and operation. In the next two years, China will have another million tons of new synthetic rubber production capacity put into production.

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