Fine chemical industry is the general name for the production of fine chemicals industry, which is referred to as “fine chemicals”, and its products are also called fine chemicals or special chemicals.

The intermediate of fine chemical industry is located at the front end of fine chemical industry. Its main function is to continue to produce fine chemical products. Its downstream applications include: thermal sensitive materials, special engineering plastics, textile printing and dyeing auxiliaries, leather chemicals, high-grade polymers and pesticides, functional dyes, etc.

The intermediates industry of fine chemical industry is characterized by fast research and development, low single product scale, and strong correlation of production technology of related products.
From the perspective of previous industry product development, once the downstream application of intermediate products is confirmed, the market promotion speed will be very fast.

Due to the complex production technology, lengthy process and fast updating speed of pesticide, medicine and other fine chemical products, no enterprise can maintain the relative cost advantage in the whole development, production and sales link.

International multinational companies take full advantage of global resources, therefore, the liquidity, repositioning, configuration, industry chain resources, put the main focus on the research and development and sales, and transfer the industrial chain of production to countries with relative cost advantages and technological base, such as China, India and then produced in these countries focus on intermediates production enterprises.

In the early stage of industry development, China could only produce a few basic intermediate products, and the output could not meet the domestic needs.

As the state of fine chemical industry in recent years has been the strong support, from scientific research and development to production and sales of intermediate industry in China has formed a set of relatively complete system, it can produce intermediate products such as pharmaceutical intermediates, dyes intermediates, pesticide intermediates 36 categories a total of more than 40000 kinds of intermediate products, in addition to meet domestic demand, is also a large number of exports to the world more than 30 countries and regions.

China’s annual exports of intermediates exceed 5 million tons, has become the world’s largest intermediate production and export.

In recent years, China’s dye intermediates industry has developed rapidly, and has become the world’s largest producer of dye intermediates, leading in resources, upstream and downstream of industrial chain, logistics and transportation, environmental protection equipment and other aspects, with a high market maturity.

However, under the influence of increasing environmental pressure, most small and medium-sized intermediate manufacturers are unable to maintain normal production and operation due to insufficient pollution control capacity, and they constantly limit production, stop production or completely shut down. The market competition pattern gradually shifts from disorderly competition to high-quality large producers.

The industrial chain integration trend appears in the industry. Large dye-intermediate enterprises gradually extend to the downstream dye-intermediate industry, while large dye-intermediate enterprises extend to the upstream intermediate industry.

In addition, dye intermediates include a wide range of products, many manufacturers have their own unique intermediate products, if there is an advanced production technology in a single product, the bargaining power in the industry on a single product can be significantly increased.

Industry drivers

(1) Great opportunities for the transfer of international fine chemical industry
With the continuous refinement of the industrial division of labor in the world, the industrial chain of fine chemical industry has also appeared staged division of labor.
All the fine chemical industry technology, link long, update speed, even large international chemical companies cannot master all research and development and production of all technology and link, therefore, most of the fine chemical industry enterprise development direction from the “instead of” gradually to “small but good”, strive to longitudinal deepening its position in the industry chain.
In order to improve the efficiency of capital, is focused on the internal core competitiveness, improve the market response speed, optimize the allocation of resources efficiency and national large chemical companies to reposition, configuration, industry chain resources, will be the focus of the product strategy to focus on the final product research and market development, and production of one or several links to more advanced, more comparative advantage of fine chemical intermediate products production enterprise.

The transfer of international fine chemical industry has brought great opportunities for the development of China’s fine chemical intermediate products industry.

(2) Strong support from national industrial policies
China has always attached great importance to the development of fine chemical industry.The Guideline Catalogue for Industrial Restructuring (2011 edition) (Amendment) issued by the National Development and Reform Commission on February 16, 2013 listed the cleaner production of dyes and dye intermediates as technologies encouraged by the state.
“Much starker choices-and graver consequences-in planning” proposed “the use of cleaner production and other advanced technology to upgrade the existing production equipment, lower consumption, reduce emissions, improve the comprehensive competition ability and sustainable development ability” and “strengthening the dyes and their intermediates of clean production technology and advanced applicable” three wastes “treatment technology research and development and application, improve the dye application technology and auxiliary, raising the level of service value in dye industry”.
The fine chemical dyestuff intermediates industry of the company’s main business belongs to the scope of national macro-industrial policy support, which will promote the development of the industry to a certain extent.

(3) China’s fine chemical industry has a strong competitive advantage
With the further deepening of global division of labor and industrial transfer, compared with developed countries, developing countries, especially China, will show more and more significant cost advantages, including:
Investment cost advantage: After years of development, China has formed a relatively mature industrial system. The cost of chemical equipment procurement, installation, construction and other inputs is lower than that of developed countries.
Raw material cost advantage: China’s main chemical raw materials have achieved self-sufficiency and even the situation of oversupply, can guarantee the supply of low-cost raw materials;
Labor cost advantage: Compared with developed countries, China’s r&d personnel and industrial workers pay a considerable gap with developed countries.

(4) Environmental protection standards are becoming increasingly strict and backward enterprises are eliminated
Good ecological environment is one of the prerequisites for the sustainable development of national economy. In recent years, the state has put forward higher requirements on environmental protection and increasingly strict environmental protection standards.
The waste water, waste gas and solid waste produced in the production process of fine chemical industry will have a certain degree of impact on the ecological environment. Therefore, fine chemical enterprises must pay attention to environmental protection, effectively control the existing pollution, and strictly implement the relevant national emission standards.
The improvement of environmental protection requirements is conducive to the chemical industry to strengthen the research and development of environmentally friendly products, enhance product competitiveness, eliminate backward enterprises, so as to make the industry more orderly competition.