China
Sponsored by
by Arnold Wang
China Correspondent
In 2016 the total area for houses and apart- ments constructed was 12. 64 billion square meters, an increase of 2 percent over 2015.
And total investment for the real estate market
was 10,258.1 billion yuan in 2016, an increase
of 7. 5 percent over the previous year. In 2016,
a total of 1.57 billion square meters of houses
and apartments were sold in China, an increase
of 22. 5 percent over 2015, proving that the real
estate property industry, an important pillar industry for China’s economy, is still growing fast
in China. This was the major impetus for the
coatings market to continuously grow in 2016.
It is established the coatings market will grow
by 6-7 percent in 2016.
Unlike the real estate property market, many
industrial sectors were lagging behind of the
growth of the macro economy, represented by
the ship building industry, which was very soft
in 2016. The total dead weight tonnage (DWT)
of the ships completed construction was 35. 32
million tons, a decrease of 15. 6 over 2015. The
orders held on hand at the end of 2016 have a
total DEW of 99. 61 billion tons, a decrease of
by 19 percent. This directly decreased the sales
volume of marine coatings of Jotun Cosco by 10
percent in the first 6 months of 2016 compared
with the same period of 2015. As I explained
in previous articles, small coatings companies
might be hit even harder by soft demand be-
cause it was more difficult to for them to get
orders from large ship building companies.
Besides, the sales of Kansai Cosco dropped
by 57 percent in the first half of 2016 over
2015. The company mainly produces and supplies anti-corrosive coatings and container
coatings to industrial customers. The revenue
decrease was mainly a result of a sales volume
Real estate
industry kept fast
growth in 2016.
Growth of Coatings Market Still Largely Dependent
on the Development of Construction Industry
