News Information

The picture shows the scene of the conference. (Photo by Zhang Yu

In the first half of this year, the economic operation of the petrochemical industry has reversed the overall decline in revenue, profit and total import and export volume last year, and is now showing a trend of bottoming out and stabilizing. However, the industry still needs to remain calm and must not be blindly optimistic. This information was learned by the reporter from the 2024 National Petroleum and Chemical Industry Economic Situation Analysis Conference held in Xi 'an on August 6th.

Fu Xiangsheng, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and vice president of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, said that in the first half of the year, the entire petrochemical industry achieved operating income of 8 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.1% year-on-year. The profit reached 429.47 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.6%. The total volume of imports and exports was 474.08 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%. The year-on-year data has improved significantly compared with the same period last year.

However, it is worth noting that due to the continuous impact of high upstream raw material prices, sluggish downstream market demand and low product prices, the petrochemical industry's profits have not yet fully reversed the downward trend in the first half of the year. Data shows that the revenue and profit of the oil and gas sector and the chemical sector have achieved "double growth". The revenue of the oil refining sector accounts for 30% of the entire industry, but its profit only makes up 0.07%, with a profit decline of more than 90%.

In response, Fu Xiangsheng explained: "In the first half of the year, the financial expenses, management expenses and other cost items of various sectors such as oil and gas and chemicals almost all showed an increasing trend. On this basis, the loss amount of loss-making enterprises also increased. The combined effect directly affected the economic benefits of the entire petrochemical industry and enterprises this year."

Reporters learned from the meeting that improving efficiency is the most talked-about topic in the industry this year. Meng Yan, a second-level inspector of the Bureau of Operation Monitoring and Coordination of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that in the first half of the year, production and investment in the petrochemical industry were generally stable, but profits slightly declined. Therefore, the industry should pay particular attention to issues such as insufficient domestic effective demand, significant pressure on the profitability of some enterprises, the still complex and severe external environment, and the increasing risk of geopolitical conflicts. Next, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will take multiple measures to fully promote the stable growth of the industrial economy.

Fu Xiangsheng pointed out that the biggest challenge facing the industry's economic operation this year is the continued decline in profits. During the difficult period when the overall economic environment is "bottoming out and consolidating", "ensuring stable production, safeguarding the market, getting through the hard times, strengthening internal capabilities and seeking survival" should be the basic goals for enterprises' production and operation this year.

In this regard, Cheng Chun, a second-level inspector of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, believes that enterprises should focus more on breakthroughs in "bottleneck" technologies, while small and medium-sized enterprises should strengthen the development of new forms of cross-border e-commerce and promote the expansion of international markets.

The industry should take technological innovation as the core, improve the quality of traditional factors, increase the input of new factors, achieve reasonable growth in quantity and effective improvement in quality, and realize high-quality economic growth. Xu Jianwei, director of the Research Office and researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics and Technology Economics of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, also offered suggestions for the industry.

Regarding the overall work approach for the high-quality operation of the petrochemical industry in the second half of the year, Fu Xiangsheng emphasized that the effects of domestic "stabilizing growth" policies are gradually emerging, and positive market factors are accumulating and increasing, creating favorable conditions for the high-quality development of the petrochemical industry. In the second half of the year, the petrochemical industry should focus on innovation-driven development and green and low-carbon transformation. Efforts should be made in reducing costs and increasing efficiency, tapping the potential of domestic demand, ensuring intrinsic safety and accelerating the development of new quality productive forces. It is necessary to cultivate and expand emerging and future industries, continuously consolidate the positive trend of the first half of the year, and promote the transformation of growth drivers, structural upgrading and quality and efficiency improvement of the petrochemical industry to a new level.

This conference is hosted by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, co-organized by Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum (Group) Co., LTD., and organized by the Information and Market Department of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation and Shandong Longzhong Information Technology Co., LTD.