Wind power industry
Global wind turbine market's annual investment will exceed 600 billion USD
Recently, Wood Mackenzie, an industry consulting agency, released the latest research report, predicting that the annual average investment in the global wind turbine market will exceed 600 billion USD from 2020 to 2028.
The report points out that the optimism towards the wind turbine market stems from the bright prospects of the global wind power market. Currently, more and more countries have put forward clear renewable energy targets, making the growth prospects of the global wind power market optimistic and driving the demand for wind turbines.
According to the report, the major wind power markets will be the main driving force behind investment in the wind turbine market. Data shows that in 2020, the newly installed wind power capacity in China and the United States alone will exceed 44 GW. Among them, Wood Mackenzie predicts that the demand for wind towers in the United States this year will be around 5,000.
Currently, the main components of wind turbines are in short supply. Wood Mackenzie analysts said that although the supply chain in China has begun to recover in March, other regions such as Europe still face the risk of short supply. This has also led to a surge in the prices of major components, and supply chain pressure is beginning to emerge. Wood Mackenzie has lowered the global newly installed wind power capacity by 3 GW.
Although the global newly installed wind power capacity may decline this year due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the trend of steady growth remains unchanged, and it is currently expected to increase by about 8% compared with 2019.
Wood Mackenzie's report also emphasizes that the current obstacles faced by the global wind power market are short-term, and in the long run, market demand will continue to grow in the next 8 years.

GWEC: Global cumulative installed wind power capacity is expected to exceed 1000 GW by 2024
The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) recently released the "Global Wind Energy Report 2019", pointing out that thanks to technological advancements and business model innovations, the wind energy industry is developing rapidly. In 2019, the global newly installed wind power capacity reached 60.4 GW, an increase of 19% compared with 2018, the second highest growth rate in the history of wind power. Among them, the newly installed capacity of onshore wind power was 54.3 GW, and that of offshore wind power was 6.1 GW. By the end of 2019, the global cumulative installed wind power capacity reached 651 GW. In the next five years (2020-2024), with more and more countries around the world developing wind power and the continuous decline in wind power costs, the global wind energy industry will maintain a rapid development trend. It is expected that the global wind power installed capacity will increase by 54% by 2024, and the global cumulative installed wind power capacity is expected to exceed 1000 GW.
In 2019, wind power installations in various regions around the world achieved varying degrees of growth. Among them, the Asia-Pacific region added 30.6 GW of wind power capacity, accounting for half (50.7%) of the global newly installed capacity during the same period, once again becoming the global engine of wind power growth; the main driving force for growth in this region came from China (+26.2 GW) and the Indian market (+2.4 GW). Europe followed closely with 15.36 GW of newly installed capacity, accounting for 25.5% of the global newly installed capacity. North America squeezed into the top three with 13.4 GW of newly installed capacity, accounting for 16.1% of the global newly installed capacity; among them, the United States performed most impressively, with 9.1 GW of installed capacity in 2019, experiencing another year of strong growth. In Latin America, the region added 3.68 GW of capacity in 2019, accounting for 6.1% of the global newly installed capacity.
In terms of cumulative installed capacity, the top five global wind power markets in 2019 remained unchanged. Among them, China's cumulative installed wind power capacity remained the world's largest, reaching 236.4 GW, accounting for more than 30% (36%) of the global total wind power installed capacity. Following closely behind is the United States, with a cumulative installed capacity of 135.4 GW. Germany ranked third with a cumulative installed capacity of 61.1 GW, leading the European wind power market. India and Spain ranked fourth and fifth globally with 55.8 GW and 37.26 GW respectively. The combined cumulative installed capacity of these five countries accounted for 72% of the global total cumulative installed capacity.
Looking ahead to the next five years (2020-2024), driven by policy incentives, renewable energy development targets, and technological advancements, the global wind power market will continue to maintain a good growth trend. During this period, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of global wind power installed capacity is expected to reach 4%.

Steel
Trend of Shanghai Nickel Futures Price
From April 9, 2020 to May 18, 2020, the nickel price generally showed an upward trend, with the highest price being 103,780 yuan/ton and the lowest price being 94,650 yuan/ton. It fluctuated around the average price of 99,215 yuan/ton, with a small amplitude. There was a small rapid increase in mid-April, followed by a callback, and then entered a parallel consolidation period, with prices remaining relatively stable.

Statistics of China's steel production data in April 2020
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in April 2020, China's average daily crude steel production was 2.834 million tons, average daily pig iron production was 2.401 million tons, and average daily steel production was 3.567 million tons.
In April 2020, China's pig iron production was 72.02 million tons, down 1.2% year-on-year; from January to April, pig iron production was 277.99 million tons, up 1.3% year-on-year.
In April 2020, China's crude steel production was 85.03 million tons, up 0.2% year-on-year; from January to April, crude steel production was 319.46 million tons, up 1.3% year-on-year.
In April 2020, China's steel production was 107.01 million tons, up 3.6% year-on-year; from January to April, steel production was 374.39 million tons, down 0.2% year-on-year.
April Steel PMI shows: The industry continues to recover, but the problem of oversupply is emerging.
The steel PMI in April was 45.9%, up 3.7 percentage points from the previous month. The sub-indexes show that market demand has rebounded this month, steel production has increased significantly, and the supply of raw materials has been strengthened. Inventories of finished products in steel mills and society have also decreased. Steel prices are weak and consolidating, and raw material prices have also fallen slightly. It is expected that demand will continue to improve in the second quarter, but the oversupply will be difficult to alleviate in the short term, steel production will be difficult to increase, and the profitability of steel mills will not be optimistic. Overall, in April, the resumption of work and production in various regions accelerated, steel demand continued to rebound from the previous month, steel production increased significantly, and steel inventories tended to decline. However, the problem of oversupply in the steel market is emerging, and the pressure on enterprises to reduce costs and increase efficiency is relatively large.

Global crude steel production year-on-year growth rate has fallen for three consecutive years
According to the World Steel Association, in 2019, global crude steel production reached 1.8699 billion tons, an increase of 3.4% year-on-year, and the year-on-year growth rate has fallen for three consecutive years. In 2019, except for Asia and the Middle East, crude steel production in other regions decreased year-on-year.
By country, the top 10 steel-producing countries are China, India, Japan, the United States, Russia, South Korea, Germany, Turkey, Brazil, and Iran. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 steel-producing countries, South Korea surpassed Russia to enter the top 5.
From an Asian perspective, in 2019, Asia's crude steel production was 1.3416 billion tons, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%. Among them, China's crude steel production was 996.3 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 8.3%, accounting for 53.3% of the global crude steel production, up from 50.9% in 2018; India's crude steel production was 111.2 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.8%; Japan's crude steel production was 99.3 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 4.8%; South Korea's crude steel production was 71.4 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 1.4%.
From the EU perspective, the EU's crude steel production in 2019 was 159.4 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 4.9%. Among them, Germany's crude steel production was 39.7 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 6.5%; Italy's crude steel production was 23.2 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 5.2%; France's crude steel production was 14.5 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 6.1%; Spain's crude steel production was 13.6 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 5.2%.
In 2019, North America's crude steel production was 120 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 0.8%, of which the United States' crude steel production in 2019 was 87.9 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.5%.

Composite materials
Official data on the fiberglass and composite materials industry in the first quarter of 2020 was released.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first quarter of 2020, the main business income of large-scale enterprises in China's fiberglass and composite materials industry reached 27.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 11.3%; the total profit was 2.14 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 9.7%. On the one hand, the COVID-19 epidemic caused a contraction in downstream market demand, which significantly affected the industry's main business; on the other hand, benefiting from the efforts to control fiberglass production capacity in the second half of 2019, the supply and demand situation in the fiberglass yarn market improved slightly, boosting the overall profitability of the industry.
In terms of the glass fiber industry, in the first quarter of 2020, the output of fiberglass yarn decreased by 6.52% year-on-year, with a decrease of 6.46% in March alone. The decrease in output was mainly affected by two aspects: on the one hand, in order to do a good job in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic, the crucible drawing and product production lines experienced a large-scale shutdown for a relatively long period of time; on the other hand, due to the industry's adoption of active production capacity control measures in 2019, there were fewer new pool kiln ignition and commissioning projects in the second half of the year, and some mid-to-low-end pool kiln production capacities were gradually withdrawn. However, because the pool kiln production line needs to maintain continuous production, and the industry's pool kiln production capacity accounts for more than 90%, the overall industry output was less affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, and the decrease was limited.
As of early May this year, the total production capacity of fiberglass yarn in the industry was about 5.4 million tons, with little change compared with the end of 2019. Affected by the epidemic and sluggish market demand, only a few small special fiberglass pool kilns were put into operation from January to April, and most new pool kiln projects adopted delayed construction and delayed ignition and commissioning to ensure the basic stability of the supply and demand market.
In terms of import and export, in the first quarter of 2020, the industry achieved exports of 397,000 tons of glass fiber and products, a year-on-year increase of 3.44%; the export value was US\$543 million, a year-on-year decrease of 2.66%. In the first quarter of 2020, China imported 36,800 tons of fiberglass and products, a year-on-year increase of 2.07%; the import value was US\$220 million, a year-on-year increase of 11.41%.
In the first quarter of 2020, the main business income of large-scale enterprises in the glass fiber industry decreased by 10.9% year-on-year, and the total profit decreased by 3.3% year-on-year. Benefiting from the industry-wide implementation of production capacity control in the second half of 2019, the growth rate of fiberglass yarn output fell significantly in the second half of last year, and corporate inventories decreased significantly. Some companies achieved price adjustments for some products before the end of the year. However, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, many downstream industries suspended production and work, and the market supply and demand relationship changed. The industry's price increase channel was temporarily closed.
The prices of raw materials such as fiberglass cloth are uncertain and there is potential for price increases.
In 2019, the electronics industry made a comeback, and PCB companies maintained high growth. With the expansion of 5G infrastructure construction and production capacity, the market has a greater demand for high-frequency, high-speed PCBs. The overall industry profit margin reached 8.45%, and profitability remained good.
According to the current market situation, and considering the current improvement in the requirements for high-frequency and high-speed performance, the price of PCB boards will not decrease significantly in the short term. It is assumed that the annual decrease will be 5% from 2019 to 2022 and 10% from 2022 to 2025. It is preliminarily estimated that the market capacity of domestic 5G base station PCBs from 2019 to 2025 will reach 74.563 billion yuan.

The prices of upstream raw materials for CCL are uncertain.
There is potential for price increases.
The three main raw materials for copper-clad laminates are copper foil, resin, and fiberglass materials. The main raw material for PCBs is copper-clad laminate CCL, which accounts for about 30%-40% of the PCB material cost. In CCL, copper foil accounts for 30% of the cost of thick CCL and 50% of the cost of thin CCL; fiberglass cloth accounts for 40% of the cost of thick CCL and 25% of the cost of thin CCL; and epoxy resin accounts for about 15%.
The cost side of copper-clad laminate companies is greatly affected by raw material prices, but the concentration of the downstream PCB industry is not high, and copper-clad laminate companies have strong pricing power, and can avoid a decline in gross profit margin by adjusting sales prices.
In the second half of 2016, the production capacity of the three main raw materials for copper-clad laminates was insufficient, and the poor supply and demand relationship led to a sharp increase in raw material prices, followed by a collective increase in the sales prices of copper-clad laminates. Some copper-clad laminate companies even increased their gross profit margin through price increases.
Resin side: In the second half of 2019, the price of epichlorohydrin in the fourth quarter reached 18,250 yuan/ton, a month-on-month increase of 52%. According to investigations, the clearing of supply-side production capacity is the main reason for the tight supply of epichlorohydrin.
The largest epichlorohydrin plant in the country was shut down in 2018 due to environmental protection issues, and many other manufacturers have also experienced shutdowns or overhauls. In addition, the profit of solid epoxy resin is not high, and the price of epichlorohydrin has risen, so epoxy resin has to raise prices to offset the increase in costs and expenses to ensure corporate profits.
In addition to tight supply, epoxy resin, as an important organic chemical raw material and an important intermediate product of petrochemicals, has also seen price increases due to fluctuations in international crude oil prices. Affected by the further reduction in production by major oil-producing countries and the decrease in US commercial crude oil inventories, international oil prices have risen sharply. Under these circumstances, the price of epoxy resin may continue to rise.

Logistics
China's Logistics Industry Prosperity Index was 53.6% in April.
In April, China's Logistics Industry Prosperity Index was 53.6%, up 2.1 percentage points from the previous month; China's warehousing index was 50.3%, down 2.4 percentage points from the previous month. In April, with the effective control of the epidemic and the acceleration of the orderly resumption of work and production by enterprises, the market demand suppressed by the epidemic in the early stage was continuously released, and the logistics industry prosperity index maintained a steady upward trend.
Ministry of Transport: Freight transport in April this year basically recovered to the level of the same period last year.
The China Transport Production Index released by the Ministry of Transport's Research Institute shows that the decline in transport production in April continued to narrow significantly, and freight transport has basically returned to the level of the same period last year.
In April 2020, the China Transport Production Index (CTSI) was 131.5 points, a decrease of 6.6 percentage points compared to March. Among them, the freight index was 169.3 points, down 1.2% year-on-year, a decrease of 7.4 percentage points compared to March. Freight transport has basically returned to the level of the same period last year. Based on the current epidemic prevention and control situation and the recovery of production and living order, the index is expected to continue its upward trend.
The China Transport Production Index (CTSI) is a weighted composite index based on the passenger and freight volume of railways, highways, waterways, and civil aviation, comprehensively reflecting the overall operation of the transportation industry. The index consists of a comprehensive index and two sub-indexes: passenger transport and freight transport.

Real Estate
Top 100 Real Estate Companies' Land Acquisition Amount Increased by Over 100% Month-on-Month in April
After a stable period in March, the land market was exceptionally hot in April. Data from relevant institutions show that the total land acquisition amount of the top 50 real estate companies in April was 310.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.5% and a month-on-month increase of 105.0%; the total land acquisition amount of the top 100 real estate companies was 388.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.2% and a month-on-month increase of 108.9%.
Data from CRIC Research Center shows that, from a monthly perspective, the investment intensity of large-scale real estate companies continued to rise in April. Half of the top 50 real estate companies in terms of sales had land acquisition amounts exceeding 5 billion yuan in April, with 9 companies having investment amounts exceeding 10 billion yuan, accounting for more than 50% of the total investment in the first four months.
According to data from relevant institutions, the total land acquisition amount of the top 10 companies in the first four months was 240 billion yuan, accounting for 37.8% of the top 50 companies.
Although the performance of real estate companies in April was positive, the cumulative land acquisition was still lower than that of the same period last year. From January to April, the total land acquisition amount of the top 50 real estate companies was 636 billion yuan, down 14.1% year-on-year; the total land acquisition amount of the top 100 real estate companies was 824.4 billion yuan, down 7.1% year-on-year.
In terms of land acquisition amount in various city clusters, the Yangtze River Delta region still ranks first, while the other three regions are comparable. From the city rankings, first- and second-tier cities are still the focus of land acquisition by real estate companies, and the land transaction growth rate in some cities in the Yangtze River Delta region is relatively large. From January to April 2020, the total land transaction amount of the top 10 cities nationwide was 542.7 billion yuan, an increase of 39.9% year-on-year; the top 10 cities in terms of planned construction area had transactions of 108.09 million square meters, an increase of 18.1% year-on-year. Among them, Shanghai ranked first with a total transaction price of 87 billion yuan, followed by Hangzhou and Beijing with 86.1 billion yuan and 85.1 billion yuan respectively.
Relevant institutions believe that although real estate companies' investment and land acquisition in 2020 have become more cautious, this is also a good opportunity for some real estate companies with sufficient funds to actively replenish their inventory or "overtake". As the impact of the scale and structure of real estate companies' land reserves on their performance continues to increase, a new market competition pattern is being reshaped.
In terms of sales, CRIC data shows that in April, the top 100 real estate companies achieved a total sales amount of 900.23 billion yuan, a month-on-month increase of 17.2% compared to March, and basically flat year-on-year compared to April last year. Overall, the market and corporate sales performance have gradually returned to normal since the first quarter.

National Real Estate Development Investment and Sales Situation from January to April 2020
According to the "National Real Estate Development Investment and Sales Situation from January to April 2020" released by the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to April, the national real estate development investment was 3310.3 billion yuan, down 3.3% year-on-year, with the decline narrowing by 4.4 percentage points compared to January to March; the sales area of commercial housing was 3397.3 million square meters, down 19.3% year-on-year, with the decline narrowing by 7.0 percentage points compared to January to March; the sales amount of commercial housing was 3186.3 billion yuan, down 18.6%, with the decline narrowing by 6.1 percentage points compared to January to March.
National Real Estate Development Investment Down 3.3% Year-on-Year, Decline Significantly Narrowed
From January to April, the national real estate development investment was 3310.3 billion yuan, down 3.3% year-on-year, with the decline narrowing by 4.4 percentage points compared to January to March. Among them, residential investment was 2423.8 billion yuan, down 2.8%, with the decline narrowing by 4.4 percentage points.
From January to April, the area of land purchased by real estate development enterprises was 31.51 million square meters, down 12.0% year-on-year, with the decline narrowing by 10.6 percentage points compared to January to March; the land transaction price was 169.9 billion yuan, up 6.9%, while it was down 18.1% from January to March.
From January to April, the funds in place for real estate development enterprises were 4700.4 billion yuan, down 10.4% year-on-year, with the decline narrowing by 3.4 percentage points compared to January to March. Among them, domestic loans were 873 billion yuan, down 2.5%; foreign investment utilization was 2.3 billion yuan, down 31.6%; self-raised funds were 1487.5 billion yuan, down 5.2%; deposits and advance payments were 1399 billion yuan, down 18.9%; and personal mortgage loans were 760.1 billion yuan, down 5.4%.
In April, the real estate development prosperity index was 98.86, an increase of 0.67 points compared to March.
Decline in Commercial Housing Sales Continues to Narrow
From January to April, the sales area of commercial housing was 3397.3 million square meters, down 19.3% year-on-year, with the decline narrowing by 7.0 percentage points compared to January to March. Among them, the sales area of residential housing decreased by 18.7%, the sales area of office buildings decreased by 32.0%, and the sales area of commercial buildings decreased by 29.1%. The sales amount of commercial housing was 3186.3 billion yuan, down 18.6%, with the decline narrowing by 6.1 percentage points compared to January to March. Among them, the sales amount of residential housing decreased by 16.5%, the sales amount of office buildings decreased by 37.5%, and the sales amount of commercial buildings decreased by 34.5%.
At the end of April, the unsold area of commercial housing was 5225.5 million square meters, a decrease of 4.72 million square meters compared to the end of March. Among them, the unsold area of residential housing decreased by 4.53 million square meters, the unsold area of office buildings decreased by 0.07 million square meters, and the unsold area of commercial buildings decreased by 0.17 million square meters.

Intelligent Manufacturing
Development Trends of Industrial Robots
Affected by the decline in the automotive industry and the weakness in the electronics industry, the demand for industrial robots once dropped sharply. After more than a year of adjustment, the robot industry is slowly emerging from the downturn. In the long run, the trend of replacing humans with machines is irreversible, and the robot industry will maintain high prosperity in the future, but the growth of industrial robots will slow down. Industrial robots will show five major development trends.
1. Human-Robot Collaboration
Human-robot collaboration is an important trend in industrial robots and a driving force for this growth.
Collaboration is crucial for improving manufacturing flexibility to adapt to high-mix, low-volume production. People can add their unique abilities to adapt to change and improvise, while robots add tireless stamina to repetitive tasks.
2. Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence and machine learning will also have a significant impact on the next generation of industrial robots.
3. New Industrial Users
Reducing reliance on the automotive industry is another key trend as other industries embrace the efficiency and flexibility that industrial robots can provide. As robots become more dexterous, safer, and come in a variety of forms, they are becoming increasingly attractive to new users in various industries.
4. Digitalization
Digitalization is also having an impact, as connected industrial robots, as part of Industry 4.0, are taking their place in the digital manufacturing ecosystem. Digitalization can enable greater collaboration across the entire value chain—lateral collaboration between suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors, or vertical collaboration within a factory, such as between the e-commerce front end and CRM systems, business ERP systems, production planning, and logistics automation systems.
5. Smaller and lighter robots
Yang Luo, CEO of Chinese robotics giant SIASUN, said that the push for simplification, coupled with smaller and lighter designs, is also opening up new opportunities for industrial robots.

Nine New Trends in Smart Manufacturing in 2020
As the industrial robot industry and CNC machine tool industry bid farewell to the high-growth stage, smart manufacturing has entered a stage of rapid development. Although the industry's growth rate slowed down in 2020 due to the epidemic, with the support of national policies, the development prospects of the smart manufacturing field are still optimistic in the industry, showing nine new trends.
1. Demand-oriented, pain-point focused will guide industrial AI from ideal to reality
On the one hand, the application of artificial intelligence technology in manufacturing focuses on industrial intelligent products or solutions to specific industrial pain points. On the other hand, compared to "icing on the cake" industrial intelligent products, technologies that provide "timely help" are more easily accepted by manufacturing enterprises.
2. Industrial big data will become the core of smart manufacturing and industrial internet development
3. Industrial intelligence based on big data will bring more service-oriented application scenarios
For example, fault diagnosis and predictive maintenance based on industrial data, which is rapidly forming, is a typical service-oriented application scenario.
4. Intelligent equipment status management system will become a new model for remote operation and maintenance
The intelligent equipment status management system will become a new model for remote operation and maintenance, forming a closed-loop operation mode based on data, from intelligent collection, intelligent analysis, intelligent diagnosis, intelligent scheduling, automatic entrustment, solution push, remote support to intelligent inspection, and then entering a new round of intelligent collection.
5. Industrial blockchain will serve data security and distributed intelligent production networks
6. Collaborative robots will become the mainstream development direction of industrial robots
7. Algorithm-based industrial intelligence platforms will become an important cornerstone of application scenarios
8. Cloud-edge collaboration will become an important technological route for industrial intelligence application products
On the one hand, the future will extend rich cloud-based business capabilities to edge nodes, realizing the collaboration of sensors, equipment, application integration, and image processing; on the other hand, the industry will work together in the cloud and edge, combining cloud and edge to create the industry's industrial brain.
9. The intelligentization of process equipment will become a breakthrough point for the transformation and development of manufacturing
In the future, the integration of core process equipment and artificial intelligence to achieve the intelligentization of process equipment will become a breakthrough point for the transformation and development of manufacturing.