Xiamen Joint Home Imp Exp

Not Everything Is Made in China

Sun, 02 Jul 2017 22:41:28 +0800

China's Imports Soar

China's imports have doubled since 2007 and more than tripled since 2004, growing at a rate that is at least twice as fast as imports worldwide each year, according to the United Nations' Comtrade Database. With its robust workforce and diverse geography, just about anything can be made in China. But the global economic powerhouse has made strategic decisions to bring a large amount in from abroad. So, what do you ask for when you have it all? Here are the top five countries that China imported from in 2014 and the goods they offer.

China posts rare trade deficit in February as imports gallop

Thu, 29 Jun 2017 22:36:57 +0800

China produced a rare trade deficit in in February after imports galloped, official data showed Wednesday.

Exports fell 1.3 percent from a year earlier in February against a Reuters analyst poll predicting a 12.3 percent rise, but imports soared 38.1 percent from a year ago, beating forecasts of a 20 percent jump.

The numbers compared against a 7.9 percent on-year rise in exports in January and a 16.7 percent rise in imports.

China ended up with a rare trade deficit of $9.15 billion for February - the first since February 2014 - the General Administration of Customs said. In January, China recorded a trade surplus of $51.35 billion.

Analysts cautioned that data in January and February can be distorted by the week-long Lunar New Year public holidays, with business slowing down ahead of time and many firms scaling back operations or closing. The holiday fell on January 28 this year, 11 days earlier than last year.

China earlier reported exports rose 4.2 percent from a year earlier in February in yuan-denominated terms, while imports soared 44.7 percent from a year ago.

The data reflected robust economic activity, analysts noted.

"We suspect that this largely reflects the boost to import values from the recent jump in commodity price inflation, but it also suggests that domestic demand remains resilient," Julian Evans-Pritchard at Capital Economics said in a note.

"Looking ahead, we expect external demand to remain fairly strong during the coming quarters which should continue to support exports."

China's shipments to the U.S. rose 11.5 percent in February in yuan terms from a year earlier. Its imports from the U.S. rose 41.0 percent.

China, the world's second largest economy, could be badly impacted by protectionist measures this year if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on campaign pledges to brand it a currency manipulator and impose heavy tariffs on imports into the U.S.

"Our estimate is that a 10 percent tariff on China goods would equate to about a 25 percent drop in exports from China to the U.S. That's a big number and that would certainly have a ripple effect on the global economy," Modern Terminals Group managing director Peter Levesque told CNBC.

Engineered stone : If not quartz, then what?

Fri, 23 Jun 2017 22:33:58 +0800

Engineered quartz has been good to the stone processing market. It has undoubtedly given the sector a larger share of the kitchen worktop market than it could have achieved with natural granite alone. And, given that success, it is not surprising that other products have been developed with the aim of expanding the sector still further.

The highest profile of the new generation of sintered materials in stone fabrication have been Lapitec and Dekton, closely followed by Neolith from The Size. There are also a lot of porcelains. And a new material being called ‘Pyrolithic Stone’ from Thailand, is being launched at the Natural Stone Show in London (ExCeL London, 25-27 April).

The new material goes under the name of Geoluxe and is being sold in the UK by Stoneware Ltd near Bedford. Stoneware is a UK-based importer and distributor of ceramic and porcelain products, specialising in large formats for use in domestic and commercial projects.

Geoluxe is not printed on the surface like a ceramic or porcelain. It is made using what the maker describes as a patented ‘GeoMimicry’ technology that ‘overcomes imperfections of natural stones and most other surface materials’. It uses natural minerals so the veining goes right through it, as it does with natural stone, quartz and sintered products. It is sold in 20mm thick slabs of 3.2m x 1.4m, and 10mm thick tiles 1.2m x 600mm.

The more familiar Lapitec was developed by Italian machinery company Breton, which controlled the quartz market for many years because it developed, patented, made and sold the machinery used in the production of quartz. For a long time it limited the supply of machinery to one manufacturer in any given territory. Eventually others developed machinery for making quartz, especially in China.

With Lapitec, distributed in the UK by The Marble and Granite Centre just off the M25 at Rickmansworth, Breton decided to hang on to the technology it developed and manufacture the products itself, rather than selling the machinery for making the material. In any case, the production process involves hefty presses and furnaces that gives production the benefits of economies of scale.

New Lapitec colours for 2017 are Avana (a warm grey), Arabescato Bernini (a dappled grey with veining), Arabescato Canova (a white with directional grey veining).

Figurative materials are expected to continue to set the trend in worktops and Lapitec is experimenting with further possibilities in sintered stone.

As well as the colours, Lapitec has added new finishes – Dune and Lithos. Dune is a smooth textured surface in undulating patterns, much like sand dunes, and Lithos is a finely textured surface that replicates natural sandstone.

Breton’s main rival is the Spanish giant Cosentino, the maker of Silestone quartz. Its sintered product is Dekton, which it distributes along with its other ranges of natural and engineered stones from its own six depots in the UK (the sixth recently opened in Scotland, in Livingston, between Glasgow and Edinburgh), and to Ireland from its depot in Dublin.

The latest development from Dekton is the highly polished Xgloss.

Lapitec and Dekton both have their own networks of approved fabricators – The Marble & Granite Centre lately reached the 100 mark with its Lapitec network.

There are also new ways of using natural stone being developed. One of the reasons people have used stone effect porcelain for walls and floors is because it remains strong even though it is thin. Stone slabs and tiles often have a glass fibre backing on them to stabilise them during sawing and polishing and when being transported, but now a new, much stronger carbon fibre backing, originally developed for the concrete industry, is starting to make its way on to thin stone. It is said to give 10mm thick stone the strength of 30mm slabs, which makes it possible to use much larger pieces of thin stone for splashbacks, shower linings and even worktops.

Fabricators and installers appreciate the fact that although the carbon fibre is strong, no special tooling is required to cut and fabricate the material (unlike processing large format porcelain or sintered slabs, which have proved to be challenging and to require their own tools and skills to work).

Carbon fibre-backed stone can be cut using a standard segmented diamond blade like those typically used to cut 20mm or 30mm slabs, either mounted on a bridge saw or an angle grinder, along with a normal water feed. The material can also be processed in the normal way using waterjets or CNC workcentres.

G603 Flamed

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 04:48:59 +0800

G603 Flamed

G603 Polished

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 04:43:17 +0800

G603 Polished

G603 Bush Hammered

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 04:36:38 +0800

G603 Bush Hammered

G603 Machine Pulled

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 04:21:54 +0800

G603 Machine Pulled

Slab-01

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 04:14:13 +0800

Slab-01

Slab-02

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 04:05:30 +0800

Slab-02

Tile

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 03:39:50 +0800

Tile