"Industrialization" merger and reconstruction of the chemical industry structure
Our reporter Zhou Lei and Huang Xin
"Fortune 500 + Fortune Global 500", a Chinese chemical giant with assets of more than one trillion yuan and more than 220,000 employees turned out, which will have a direct impact on the structure of China's chemical industry and the global chemical industry.
The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission recently announced that China Sinochem Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Sinochem") and China National Chemical Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "China National Chemical") will implement a joint reorganization.
Both Sinochem Group and ChemChina stated that they will actively and steadily advance the joint reorganization in accordance with relevant laws and regulations and the requirements of regulatory agencies.
The industry generally believes that through this joint reorganization, resources will be better integrated, synergistic effects will be exerted, a world-class comprehensive chemical enterprise will be built, and the high-quality development of my country's chemical industry will be promoted.
The chemical industry is the basic and pillar industry of the national economy and an important sector of the modern economic system.
The world chemical industry has the characteristics of high industrial concentration, prominent scale effect, and dominance of large enterprises.
In recent years, the high-end trend of the chemical industry has continued to emerge. In order to enhance the overall competitiveness of enterprises, international chemical giants have promoted mergers and acquisitions.
In 2017, the American paint giant Sherwin-Williams completed the acquisition of Valspar.
In 2018, Bayer completed the acquisition of Mount Mondu; Linde and Praxair completed the merger; Mitsui Chemicals and Thai National Petroleum Corporation merged to manage the global PET and PTA business.
At present, the world's developed economies all have large-scale comprehensive chemical companies, which play an important leading role in chemical basic research and development, new product creation, and industrial chain value creation.
my country, as a major chemical country, has relatively scattered market players and weaker industry clustering effects.
Li Shousheng, president of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, pointed out that, currently, China lacks large-scale enterprises with international competitive advantages, which is a shortcoming from a major petrochemical country to a powerful one.
The reorganization of Sinochem Group and ChemChina to form a new group is a landmark event in the strategic restructuring of China’s petroleum and chemical industries.
The predecessor of Sinochem Group is China National Chemical Import and Export Corporation, which has obvious trade advantages. ChemChina is a state-owned enterprise established on the basis of the former Ministry of Chemical Industry. It has frequent overseas business mergers and acquisitions and has technological advantages.
"The merger of Sinochem Group and ChemChina will help complement each other's advantages, accelerate the adjustment of industrial structure, and create a chemical giant with a wide range of radiation, penetration of the upstream and downstream of the industry, and a more complete industrial chain to respond to the competition of giants in the chemical industry." Said Dr. Xing Jun from Sinopec Research Institute of Economics and Technology Co., Ltd.
It is understood that China is the world's largest producer and consumer of chemicals, as well as a major importer of chemical products.
China's rapid growth in demand for high-end chemicals, especially in new materials, is far greater than the increase in supply.
As China continues to open up, international chemical giants have increased investment in China.
In April 2020, the ExxonMobil Guangdong Huizhou Ethylene Project with a total investment of approximately US$10 billion started.
On May 30, 2020, the first batch of devices for BASF's Guangdong New Integrated Base Project was started in Zhanjiang, with a total investment of US$10 billion.
In the case of increasingly fierce competition in the chemical industry, it is time for the "two-chemical" reorganization.
After the reorganization, the new company will adhere to a globalized and market-oriented operation model, and is committed to building a world-class “world-class with life science and material science as the lead, basic chemical industry as the support, environmental science as the guarantee, and science and technology driven, sustainable development. Comprehensive chemical enterprise".
Ning Gaoning, Chairman of Sinochem Group and Chairman of China National Chemical Corporation, publicly stated last year that in the chemical industry, there are about 100,000 types of fine chemicals, and less than half of them are actually made by Chinese companies.
"At present, Sinochem and Sinochem together, the sales of original and high-tech products are less than 30%, and this proportion needs to be gradually increased."
Wang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Institute of Science and Technology Development Strategies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that Sinochem has put forward "Science First" in recent years and is already transforming towards innovation-driven. In 2018, Sinochem signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
ChemChina has inherited the scientific research institute system of the original chemical industry. In recent years, overseas mergers and acquisitions have enabled it to have a world-class R&D-oriented company represented by Syngenta.
The reorganization of the "two industrializations" is conducive to enterprises to further increase investment in research and development, promote the optimization of the innovation system, promote the integration of innovation resources of subordinate scientific research institutions, and better play their role in scientific and technological innovation and industry leadership.
The industry has also noticed that the reorganization and integration of the "two industrializations" will produce greater synergies in agrochemical, rubber and other fields.
In 2020, Sinochem Group will integrate the agrochemical businesses of ChemChina and establish Syngenta Group.
The group is a new type of agrochemical giant spanning the four major fields of fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, and digital agriculture.
In the first half of 2020, all business units of the Syngenta Group achieved sales growth in core businesses.
Judging from the current situation, the Syngenta Group has made positive progress in the relevant work: through reorganization and integration to strengthen the high-quality development of agrochemical business, through capital operation to achieve an international layout, through the MAP strategy to build a modern agricultural service platform, through the acquisition of technology The company facilitates digital transformation.
"The integration of the "Two Chemicals" in the agrochemical field only opened the prelude to the integration of the chemical industry. I believe that the future integration will help the chemical industry to further move towards high-quality development." Xing Jun analyzed.
Zhou Lei Huang Xin