China Steel Industry – Overview, Trends, Prospects And Swot Analysis

Emerging Markets Direct (EMD) announced the release of their latest China Steel Industry Report 2H10. It states that China ranked number one in crude steel production (reaches 567.8 million metric tons) again in 2009, which is 13.5% higher than previous year and sharing 46.3% of the world’s total.

The report first profiles the China Steel Industry.Driven by China’s economic development, production of steel reached 426.6 million tons as of August 2010, and is expected to reach 640 million tons for the full year. Finished steel products also increased significantly, EMD outlines the growth scenario of finished steel products, out of which heavy rail track material has an impressive growth of 52.8%.

The Chinese industry is highly fragmented with approximately 800 steel mills, majority state-owned in nature. EMD lists out the production by province out of which Hebei province comes first among other Chinese provinces (22% of total China production).

The EMD report then covers market trends and outlook. The Chinese government introduced measures to curb the over-heated property market in August 2010. According to our report, China’s steel consumption is expected to decelerate in 2011. As the no.1 steel importing country, what will be the impact? EMD gives you an overview of the import numbers and steel price.
It also provides a discussion on the export market. In 2009, China fell from no.1 to no.4 in the export of steel product. Exports rose by 153% YoY in the first half of 2010 due to the revival of the marco-economic condition. With the removal of tax rebates on certain steal products in July, will exports still increase in the coming months? What is the impact of China exports on other ASEAN countries?

What are the prospects of the China steel sector? What is the outlook for steel price? How does the performance differ between Chinese and non-Chinese steel producers? What are the factors leading to the difference in their EBITDA? The China Steel Industry report gives you the background to answer these questions.

Finally, it describes the competitive landscape and leading players of the industry. The China Steel Industry report provides basic company profile, history, financial highlights, performance data, recent development and SWOT analysis of Shanghai Baosteel Group Corporation, Baosteel Co. Ltd, Anshan Iron & Steel Group, Angang Steel Company Ltd., Wuhan Iron & Steel Group, Hebei Iron & Steel Group Company Ltd.

Table of Content
1. Industry Profile
1.1 Global Steel Industry
1.2 China Steel Industry
1.2.1 The Structure of the Industry
1.2.2 Fragmentation of the Chinese Steel Industry
1.3 Industry Production
1.3.1 Production of Steel Products
1.3.2 Production by Province
2. Market Trends and Outlook
2.1 Steel Consumption
2.2 Imports Market
2.3 Exports Market
2.3.1 Impact of China Export on Southeast Asia
2.4 Prices
2.5 Market Outlook
3. Leading Players and Comparative Matrix
3.1 Leading Players
3.1.1 Shanghai Baosteel Group Corporation
3.1.1.1 Baosteel Co. Ltd
3.1.2 Anshan Iron & Steel Group Corporation
3.1.2.1 Angang Steel Company Ltd
3.1.3 Wuhan Iron & Steel Group
3.1.4 Hebei Iron & Steel Group Company Ltd
3.2 Comparative Matrix
3.3 SWOT Analysis

4. Tables and Charts
Table 1: Major Steel Producing Countries (million metric tons) in 2008 and 2009
Table 2: Top 20 Steel Exporting Countries in 2009 (million metric tons)
Table 3: Top 20 Steel Importing Countries in 2009 (million metric tons)
Table 4: Major Chinese Steel Producers (million tons) in 2008 and 2009
Table 5: Production of Finished Steel Products (thousand tons) in 2008 and 2009
Table 6: Steel Production by Province (thousand tons) in 2008 and 2009
Table 7: Steel Imports by Quantity (thousand tons) from 2003 to 2009
Table 8: Steel Export by Quantity (thousand tons) from 2003 to 2009
Table 9: Price of Whorl Steel 22mm Q235 by Province (RMB per ton) from 2006 to 2009
Table 10: Baosteel Co. Ltd Distribution of Business Income and Cost of Principal Business Segments (RMB million)
Table 11: Leading Players Financial Highlights 2008 and 2009
Chart 1: World Crude Steel Production (‘000 metric tons) from 2003 – 2009
Chart 2: World Steel Production by Geographical Distribution in 2009
Chart 3: Production of Steel and Steel Products from 2001 to August 2010
Chart 4: Production of Iron Ore, Pig Iron and Coke from 2002 to August 2010
Chart 5: Production of Steel Billet by Large and Medium Enterprises from 2002 to August 2010
Chart 6: Imports of Iron Ore from 2000 to 2008
Chart 7: Steel Product Exports in China from January 2009 to August 2010
Chart 8: Exports of Selected Steel Products by Value from 2007 to August 2010
Chart 9: Trade Balance of Iron & Steel from 2005 to August 2010
Chart 10: Prices of Selected Steel Products (RMB per ton) from January 2009 to July 2010
Chart 11: EBITDA per Ton Forecast from 2004 to 2011
Chart 12: EBITDA per Ton by Region from 2006 to 2015
Chart 13: Baosteel Co. Ltd Distribution of Steel and Steel Products

About Emerging Markets Direct
Emerging Markets Direct is the online research store from ISI Emerging Markets, a Euromoney Institutional Investor Company. We deliver in-house industry research report, industry analysis and data vital to support all kinds of business decision, academic and research purposes. Our flagship product Emerging Markets Direct Report covers the top 20 industry sectors of India, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Indonesia. ISI Emerging Marketsin-house analysts crunch the numbers from our proprietary CEICdatabases and combine the results with on-the ground industry insight. The result is reliable, hard-to-get industry data, analysis and insight. Previously available only to subscribers of the ISI Emerging Markets Information Service,Emerging Market Direct reports are available now at our online research store. Our Other products are: CEIC snapshots, CEIC datatalk, Intellinews.

Industry Consolidates As Vitalife Joins The Trump Network

VitaLife Networks a Florida based nutritional network marketing company, with independent marketers in all 50 states, joins with The Trump Network (TTN) . VitaLife members currently market a full line of nutritional products; making them ideal candidates to market The Trump Networks unique line of wellness based products and services.

We studied our product mix and our marketplace, our business opportunity and compensation, and especially the systems needed; not only to attract new marketers, but also the systems required to develop the individual and give them the best opportunity to be successful. Once we identified what we needed, it became obvious that there was one company, and only one, that already had the values, systems and sustainable infrastructure in placeThe Trump Network.

The Trump Network was a perfect match for VitaLife.

VitaLife is passionate about the Wellness Revolution and has provided and marketed high quality nutritional products since its inception. By transitioning to The Trump Network, the VitaLife Marketers will be equipped with the very best products, training, tools, and systems the industry has to offer.

Barry and Luronda Joye, the Leaders of the VitaLife Marketing Community are excited, confident, and ready to build. “All the things it takes to create a sustainable and profitable business converge here and we are grateful and thrilled to take advantage of The Trump Network’s incredible programs.”

1.TTNs Custom Essentials(R) delivers personalized nutritional supplementation based on the individuals biochemistryproviding a competitive edge.
2.TTNs Silhouette Solution(R) provides access to the lucrative $50 billion weight loss industry.
3.TTNs compensation system provides aggressive short term income and long term wealth building.
4.TTNs systems and technology provides the framework and support to grow and maintain the business, and provide personal development for its members.

The Trump Name provides instant recognition and credibility which allows our members to recruit much faster and maintain much longer.
We looked at everything in our market when choosing the best fit for our community, says Jim Fulford. We came to the same conclusion that Trump did when he selected Ideal Health to become The Trump Network.

They have the right product mix, are in the right markets, and have an entrepreneurial leadership team committed to building a multi-billion dollar company. And now with The Trump Network name, we believe they are perfectly poised to dominate the industry. Everyone at VitaLife is excited about this new opportunity. Our team will play an integral role as we build a bright future at The Trump Network.

We are thrilled to have the members of VitaLife join The Trump Network team. We work hard to provide the products, training, and support needed to help our Marketers compete in the marketplace. We look forward to helping each member of VitaLife get off to a fast start, said Lou DeCaprio, President, The Trump Network. We believe in the VitaLife corporate leadership team and I look forward to meeting the rest of the Vitalife members during our many conference calls and as I travel the country to share The Trump Network story.

The VitaLife team is now operating as Trump Marketers as the Diamond Success Partners Team. To learn more about the Diamond Success Partners team, visit www.dsptn.com.

Organic Industry Watchdog FDA Food Safety Rules Threaten to Crush the Good Food Movement

September 19, 2013 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042

Organic Industry Watchdog: FDA Food Safety Rules Threaten to Crush the Good Food Movement

New Report Suggests Proposed Rules Could Drive the Nation’s Safest and Best Farmers Out of Business

http://www.cornucopia.org/2013/09/fda-food-safety-rules-threaten-crush-good-food-movement/ CORNUCOPIA, WI: After years of deliberation in Congress, interagency meetings, lobbyist activity, and a never-ending stream of food poisoning outbreaks, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is finally poised to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

However, according to a just released white paper by The Cornucopia Institute at http://www.cornucopia.org/FoodSafety/, the FDA’s draft rules are so off the mark that they might economically crush the country’s safest farmers while ignoring the root threats to human health: manure contaminated with deadly infectious pathogens generated on “factory” livestock farms and high-risk produce-processing practices.

-In response to deadly outbreaks involving spinach, peanut butter and eggs, Congress acted decisively three years ago to pass the Food Safety Modernization Act,” said Mark A. Kastel, Codirector at The Cornucopia Institute, a farm policy research group based in Wisconsin. “Better oversight is needed but it looks like regulators and corporate agribusiness lobbyists are simultaneously using the FSMA to crush competition from the organic and local farming movement.”

Cornucopia’s report closely examines the FDA’s draft regulations (http://www.fda.gov/Food/guidanceregulation/FSMA/ucm334114.htm) for implementing the new food safety law, and a new FDA guidance (http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/Eggs/ucm360028) designed to control Salmonella in eggs produced by outdoor flocks. The report concludes that the new proposals would ensnare some of the country’s safest family farmers in costly and burdensome regulations in a misdirected attempt to rein in abuses that are mostly emanating from industrial-scale farms and giant agribusiness food-processing facilities.

Family farm advocates, and groups representing consumers interested in high-quality food, thought they had won a victory when the Tester/Hagan amendment was adopted by Congress exempting farmers doing less than $500,000 in business from the new rules. But Cornucopia’s report suggests the FDA seems more interested in a “one-size-fits-all” approach to food safety regulation.

In reality, the report suggests that small farms are not really exempt. The FDA is proposing that the agency can, without any due process, almost immediately force small farms to comply with the same expensive testing and record-keeping requirements as factory farms.

“In practical terms,” explains Judith McGeary, a member of The Cornucopia Institute’s policy advisory panel and Executive Director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, “the FDA will be able to target small farms one-by-one and put them out of business, with little to no recourse for the farmers.”

The FDA’s economic analysis also shows that farms over $500,000 (still small in the produce industry) will be significantly impacted with some being driven out of business.

“The added expense and record-keeping time will potentially force many small and medium-sized local farms – owner-operated, selling at farmers markets directly to consumers or to local grocers and natural food co-ops – out of business,” Kastel added.

The Institute’s analysis points out that the FDA has wildly inflated the number of foodborne illnesses that originate from farm production (seed to harvest rather than contamination that occurs later in processing and distribution).

It also alleges that the FDA has failed to recognize that specific processed crops such as fresh-cut, or produce grown in certain regions are the genesis of 90% of dangerous outbreaks in fruits and vegetables. In addition to imports from countries like Mexico, where the most recent Taylor Farms Cyclospora outbreak (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/business/taylor-farms-big-food-supplier-grapples-with-frequent-recalls.html?_r=0) originated, the evidence indicates that fresh-cut bagged/boxed salad mix and greens, other pre-cut vegetables and sprouts are much more prone to contamination.

“The proposed rule is a mess,” said Daniel Cohen, owner of Maccabee Seed Company, a longtime industry observer. “The FDA has much greater expertise on food safety issues from harvest to the consumer, but focused instead on farming issues from planting to harvest. Limited, modest, and more focused steps to improve on-farm food-safety could have produced simple, affordable, effective, and enforceable regulation.”

According to Cornucopia, the most important lost opportunity in the collaborative process between Congress, the FDA and the USDA is the lack of attention directed at the giant concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs (factory farms) raising livestock. The massive amount of manure stored at these factory farms is commonly tainted by highly infectious bacteria that have been polluting America’s air, water and farmlands.

“Federal regulators propose nothing to address sick livestock in animal factories and their pathogen-laden manure that is contaminating surrounding rural communities, nearby produce farms and our food supply,” Kastel lamented.

No More Organic Eggs?

The 2010 salmonella outbreak in eggs, centered in Iowa, shone a spotlight on industrial-scale egg houses confining thousands of hens in filthy and dangerous conditions.

The salmonella outbreak led to comprehensive regulation and new guidance for organic farmers. Organic farmers are required by federal law to provide outdoor access to their hens and the new FDA guidance, according to Cornucopia, materially undermines this management practice. And they are doing this despite scientific evidence tying higher rates of pathogenic contamination to older, massive factory farms with cages and forced molting (practices banned in organics) rather than raising birds outside.

“Their new guidance, on one hand, will make it difficult, expensive and maybe even impossible to have medium-sized flocks of birds outside,” Kastel stated. “At the same time, the FDA has colluded with the USDA’s National Organic Program to say that tiny ‘porches’, which hold only a minute fraction of the flock, will now legally constitute ‘outdoor access.’ This is a giveaway to conventional egg companies that are confining as many as 100,000 birds in a building and calling these ‘organic.'”

The Cornucopia Institute has publicly stated that they are investigating legal action against regulators if enforcement action is not taken, under the Organic Foods Production Act (http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC50603700), against the large industrial operations confining laying hens and broilers indoors.

The issue of food safety in Washington has been a contentious one, causing rifts even between nonprofits representing the interest of consumers and family farm organizations that have been historically aligned in support of organic and local food. Some consumer advocates pressed for no exemptions, even as farm policy experts have supplied evidence indicating smaller, family-operated farms are inherently safer.

“Only an idiot would not be concerned with food safety,” said Tom Willey, a Madera, California, organic vegetable producer and longtime organic advocate.

Added Willey: “The antibiotic resistant and increasingly virulent organisms contaminating produce, from time to time, are mutant creatures introduced into the larger environment from confined industrial animal operations across the American countryside. The FDA’s misguided approach could derail achievements in biological agriculture and a greater promise of food made safe through respect for and cooperation with the microbial community which owns and operates this planet upon which we are merely guests.”

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The Cornucopia Institute is a nonprofit organization engaged in research and educational activities supporting the ecological principles and economic wisdom underlying sustainable and organic agriculture. Through research and investigations on agricultural and food issues, The Cornucopia Institute provides needed information to family farmers, consumers, stakeholders involved in the good food movement, and the media.

Half Year Report-construction Machinery Industry Overview

www.cri-report.com – In January-June 2011, China’s construction machinery industry accumulatively achieved the total industrial output value of CNY 312.35 billion, ascending by 43.04% YOY, and realized the sales revenue of CNY 306.13 billion, increasing by 40.86% YOY.

In 2011 H1, the accumulative product output of China’s construction machinery industry continued growing. Except for special cement equipment whose output experienced substantial year-on-year decline, other products all maintained growth, especially for internal combustion folk lift products.

After China’s construction machinery market experienced the rapid growth in 2011 Q1, various sub-industries have seen an obvious decline in sales volume since April compared with March. In January-May 2011, the accumulative sales volume of excavators in China grew by 36% YOY; that of bulldozers grew by 21% YOY; that of loaders grew by 21% YOY. It has been an indisputable fact that the construction machinery industry has slowed down.

Although China’s construction machinery industry still has favorable prospects in 2011, the decline in growth rate is an inevitable trend. The main reason for the decline in prosperity of some products in the industry lies in credit crunch, whose influence on the industry is mainly reflected in 2 aspects: first, the downstream demand of the industry will be influenced. Construction of some projects under construction has decelerated due to credit crunch, and operation of projects which were originally planned to be operated has been delayed; second, the marketing efforts of enterprises will be influenced. In 2011 Q1, various construction machinery enterprises successively made more marketing efforts and increased the proportions of financial leasing and installment payment so as to seize market shares. Since April, some enterprises have enhanced risk control and decreased the proportion of credit sales.

In 2011, the global economy recovered gradually and the demand for construction machinery increased. The external demand will still grow, directly driving the construction machinery export market especially for the construction engineering machinery manufacturing industry. Although the base of global economic recovery is unstable, the situation of favorable global economy will be unchanged in 2011. The export environment of China’s construction machinery will continue improving and the export value is predicted to be resumed to the record high of 2008.

To get more details, please go to http://www.cri-report.com/278-chinese-construction-industry-report-2011h1.html

More following information can be acquired from this report:
-Operations of China’s Construction Machinery Industry, 2011 H1
-Operations of Sub-industries of China’s Construction Machinery Industry, 2011 H1
-Import and Export of China’s Construction Machinery, 2011 H1
-Prediction on Development of China’s Construction Machinery Industry, 2011 H2

Video Game Industry Stocks Why Is Electronic Arts More Expensive Than Activision

I was looking through gaming stocks and noticed that shares of Electronic Arts (ERTS) are trading at a much higher valuation than Activision Blizzard (ATVI). That made me wonder, Does Electronic Arts deserve to trade at a premium to Activision?

Electronic Arts is trading just under $20 per share. EPS estimates for 2010 are 43 cents per share and 62 cents for 2011. That equates to a 46 multiple on current years earnings and a 32 multiple for 2011. The 5 year growth rate is 12.8%, which is pretty optimistic considering the negative earnings growth of the past five years. Its tough to have faith in Electronics Arts management considering the poor operating efficiency. Management has graced us with a negative ROE and ROA over the past few quarters.

One of the bright spots for Electronic Arts is the companys storied brand name and solid balance sheet. Electronic Arts has cash cow franchises Madden NFL, The Sims, Battlefield, Rock Band, etc. The software developer has $1.78 billion in cash and no debt. The stock looks expensive using any valuation method including price to book and price to sales. Shares of Electronic Arts appear to be benefitting from improving trends in the video game industry. Video game sales rose 10% last month.

Activision Blizzard is trading just under $12.00 and has a expected EPS of 73 cents for 2010 and 82 cents for 2011. 2010s PE ratio is 16 and 2011s is 14.5. Earnings growth is estimated at 14.6%. Activision raised 1st quarter guidance last week due to strong sales from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. While ROA and ROE are not very impressive, at least both numbers are positive for Activision. The management team has done a qualitative job at Activision with its acquisitions and ability to consistently grow the bottom line.

Compare this with Electronic Arts who has been trying to fix its internal problems for years. Activision has no debt and $3.25 billion in cash on its balance sheet. Shares are currently trading less than 1.5 times book value. Activision has a popular lineup of games including World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and Starcraft.