By Zheng Junming, Vice Chairman of CSGIA, Director/G. Manager of Denbishi Company

The Current Situation of China Screen Printing Industry

To learn about the current situation of China screen printing industry, you should know the macro-environment of China. It has been 29 years since China’s reform and opening up in 1978. Especially from 1996 to 2006, the economy of China kept a rapid growth for 10 years, with the average GDP growth rate over 9% annually. Among it, the total industrial output kept a rapid growth rate of over 10% per year, attracting worldwide attention. China has been worthy of being named as a global manufacturing factory. In this situation, screen printing, as an important industrial processing process which is capable of printing on all subtracts other than water and air. It applies almost in all fast developing industries in China, and achieved leap-forward progress. Meanwhile, screen printing is an industry in crack. Compared with final consumer goods, screen printing possesses the advantages of higher profit, lower entrance threshold and fast accumulation. With the market broadening and rapid economic growing in China, screen printing has experienced rapid development and is developing at fast speed day by day.

In China, screen printing industry in eastern coastal area is in higher technical level and developing at high speed, while in the middle and western areas the developing rate is lower and technology is backward. The quantity of both screen printing enterprises and their products in the Southern part is much larger than in the Northern part. In the eastern area, such as Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, it is characterized by rapid development of new and high technologies. Taking Guangdong province for example, a joke says that a casually thrown stone may hit one screen printing factory there.

With Dongguan as the center in Guangdong province, there are over 700 manufacturing factories for printed circuit board (PCB). From this point you can see how big market in China, and you may not be surprised at so rapid progress and fierce competition.

In south China with center of Zhuhai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, there are many foreign investors’ enterprises, their highly industrialized requirements speed up the upgrading of screen printing materials, equipment and technical level in China. A complete industrial chain has been formed for screen printing materials and equipment. Led by numerous world industrial magnates, manufacturing zones have been formed in east China, thus forcefully promote the development of high technologies for screen printing products.
   
Screen Printing Enterprises Distribution in China

1. Printing and Dyeing Industry
The printing and dyeing industry is a Chinese traditional industry. Because of the backward economy in China during 1980s to 1990s, printing and dyeing industry in China has undergone a painful industrial evolution and upgrading process. Meanwhile, the entry of a large number of foreign-invested enterprises into China has accelerated rapid completion of this processing.

Through the development since 1990s, the silk production, textile printing and dyeing and post-processing has witnessed rapid development, and has been industrialized soon. A Complete industrial chain has been formed for raw materials, supplies and techniques in screen printing industry, and the technologies in printing and dyeing industry have been elevated to the world advanced level. At present, the employees in printing and dyeing industry amount to over 20 million. After China’s entry into WTO, thanks to high quality and low price, China made textile products has impacted greatly on the European and American markets, all these can be seen from the negotiations on the limitation of textile products between China and European countries and American.

2. Ceramic Transfer Paper Industry

China is a major exporting country of ceramic products for daily use. In the past, large size decal paper technology was adopted for most ceramic screen printers. The decal paper in small size started to produce a decade ago. In past five years, the production of small size decal paper has undergone a substantial progress in both quantity and quality. The production technology has reached the world level, and a lots of products are exported to the foreign countries.

On rough estimation, there are over 500 manufacturers for small size decal paper in China, mainly distributing in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Chaozhou, and Chongqing in Sichuan. Hunan is a Chinese traditional production region for decal paper, centering on Changsha and Liling, where several decal paper factories are operating in each county. Also a numerous decal paper factories locate in Beiliu, Guangxi province, Dehua in Fujian, Zibo in Shandong, Tangshan and Handan in Hebei province. In addition, several large-sized decal paper factories have appeared in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang in recent years.

In order to fully understand the scale of the decal paper industry in China, we can conduct analysis from the consumption of OPL for decal paper production. The total production and sale of OPL in China is up to 3000 ton annually. On the Calculation of   11g OPL consumption for base paper in a full size of 500cm × 700cm, at least 230 - 300 million sheets of decal papers are produced in China per year.

Besides, both water slip decal paper in low temperature for helmet and water transfer decal for bicycle and racket have achieved rapid advancement in quantity and quality. The related supplies as photo emulsion, mesh, pigment, printing machinery have also obtained rapid growing.

3. Electronics Industry

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) is the section with screen printing used mostly and flexographic printing is undergoing sustained development in China. China has become a world’s PCB production base, and possesses over 200 full automatic screen printing production lines for single-sided PCB.  More and more factories manufacturing double-sided PCB and multi-layer PCB are under construction or expansion.

To meet the demands of electronic products production, the electronic element and component industry producing laminated multilayer ceramic resistors, capacitors and inductors have appeared in China in recent decade, they also have experienced rapid growth.

The frame edges and electrodes for LCD are also processed by screen printing. Preliminary statistic shows that the production capacity of TN and STN of LCD in China makes up over 80% of the total in the world. Headed by SMPD, a joint venture enterprise of Panasonic and SVA, the PDP, as representing the highest technical level in the industry, is developing rapidly in China. Whole screen printing processing is completed in Shanghai, but the screen plates need to be imported from Japan for its highest precision.

4. Signs and Name Plate Industry

With large amount of end products produced in China, the production of PET and PC surface plate, panels and case of mobile, displays of computers and panel plate of automobile are increasing rapidly in China, and thus giving the imputes to the development of screen printing ink and coating industry. In addition, the newly emerged FRID Label industry has also shown an inestimable market potential.

5. Glass Industry

The advancement of automobile industry in China during the past decade is remarkable obviously to the world. The demands for automobile panels, especially the windowpanes with black frames and the back windshield printed with silver conductive ink, has pushed forward the development of large format screen printers and the printing materials and techniques as well. The automobile windowpanes made in China are not only sold in local market, but also exported in gradually increased volume. Meanwhile, the increased production of glasses wine bottle, beverage bottle, construction and decoration glass, promotes the development of large format screen printing machines and the raw materials used for inorganic pigment inks. With the increasing pressures from energy and environment issues, the production of solar battery will show a great leap forward in both quality and quantity in China, and the importance of screen printing process in this field is clear without saying.

6. CD Industry

Although I have not specific study and statistics, I am sure that at present most Chinese families have rushed into digital age and discarded the magnet tapes. From this aspect, we may conclude that in China, a country with large population and consumption, the output of CD, VCD and DVD must be in the front ranks of the world.

7. Package Printing Industry

China has a population of 1.3 billion. Although smoking is a bad habit, China is still a country with large consumption of cigarette and alcohol. With the gradually improvement of people’s living standard, the luxury consumption of cigarette and alcohol is growing steadily, and pushed their packaging forward to even higher degree. For example, UV ink printing with metallic etching effect for cigarette and alcohol packaging has achieved amazing development in last decade, which is seldom seen abroad.

8. Advertisement Industry

With the urban environment in China gradually beautifying and increasingly intensified self-promoting and advertising sense of enterprises, screen printed advertisement has seen a remarkable development. The large format outdoor billboard, automobile advertisement and light box can be seen everywhere, but screen printing has met with great impact of digital printing in the field of large format advertisement and short run jobs. However screen printing still offers competitive advantages in reproduction of fine artworks and posters in long print run.

Three Stages of Screen Printing Industry growing

The first stage of screen printing industry development in China is from 1980s to early 1990s. Screen printing raw materials and equipment entered China mainland through Hong Kong from European and American (and Japanese). The introduction of foreign products promotes the rapid elevation of technical level in China. On the other hand, it was negatively affected by disordered market management, low tax awareness and smuggled goods impact. At that time, the production capacity and quality of the local products were lower, compared with the exported products, still a long distance to go.

The second stage: during 1990s, with large influx of foreign investment and enlarging market, the economy of China entered the stage of rapid development. After China’s accession into WTO, with legal and tax system much more improved and strict management, real market economy and fare competition mechanism were gradually formed in China.

The third stage: in the 21st Century, foreign manufactures began to set up factories in China one after another, and realized the production and operation localization. Meanwhile, foreign manufacturers began to set its R&D department in China to strengthen their technical service directly to the end customers and construction of logistics system of production, stock and supply and sales network.

In the three stages above, foreign invested enterprises developed and expanded their market in China, and at the same time promoted the development of local enterprises in technology, process, quality and service.

The Problems to be Studiedand Resolved in China Screen Printing Industry

I often hear foreign friends saying that China’s development is too fast to understand and foresee its future. To say frankly, screen printing is a universal printing process. Just as same in Japan, Europe and America, surely it will experience various of developing phases in China.

After China’s accession into WTO, screen printing industry has formed complete market economy orientation, and developed in more ordered and healthy direction. With policies and regulations perfected, Chinese market provides great opportunities for screen printing enterprises, but the opportunities coexist with challenges and risks. To succeed in Chinese market, the enterprises should possess their own core technologies, master the operational rules in both local and international market, produce and sell the products on the market demands, and strive to improve product quality and technical services. Only in this way can the enterprises be successful in the fierce competition, and only in the competition the enterprise can make itself stronger and bigger. Here I want to emphasize that compared with advanced countries, China has larger population, thus it has larger consumption; China is vast in territory, thus it offers big market and more business opportunities. The enterprises in the world are all fixing their eyes on Chinese market, thus the competition is surely fiercer, and the growth and innovation are even faster.

1. Environment Protection and Energy

According to the statistics in June of 2007, the emission of CO2 in China has exceeded that of America, and China has become the biggest emission country in the world, resulting in a series of warming issues globally. At present, solvent ink is still widely used in the screen printing industry in China, leading to human bodies injury and environment pollution. We admit that Chinese enterprises in general have not strong environmental awareness and take proper measures for this problem, which needs more care of and to resolve promptly. Otherwise, we will pay more for it than we have paid. How to save energy in screen printing industry? This is also a problem asking for careful treatment and urgent solution with self- conscientiousness and great efforts.
In this aspect, the European fellows have set a good example for us. With the enforcement of Rohs standard, Chinese enterprises must observe the rules and take the social responsibility so as to realize the coexistence of market with the global

2. Fair Competition and Intellectual Property Protection

China’s economic growth and development of screen printing industry in the past 20 years is benefited from the reform and opening policy of the government, by relying on the land of lower price, the labor force of low cost and high efficiency, and stable social environment and labor-capital relationship. However, these advantages will gradually disappear in China in the 21st century, and soon the Chinese enterprises will posited in the same situation to compete and develop as foreign competitors. We hope that competition would be more open and fair. In this case it is most important to protect intellectual property right through legal action. The Chinese government and some industry associations are working hard for it. Meanwhile, we hope all enterprises join in this action to destroy illegal copies and fake products and improve the image of the products made in China.

All fellow workmates in all countries, at today of globalization, opportunities and challenges in China are not things only for China, but are common issues to all the fellow workmates in the world. We sincerely hope all of us join efforts to meet the challenges and share our opportunities fairly and justly, for realizing harmony and win-win, and creating a peaceful, just, developing, green and beautiful world for our today and tomorrow.