According to customs statistics, China's cumulative export of instrumentation products in 2013 was US $25.37 billion, an increase of 6.2% year-on-year; Imports reached US $42.29 billion, up 3.8% year-on-year

Since 2001, China's import and export of instrument products has maintained a rapid and stable growth. Only in 2009, it fell due to the impact of the international financial crisis. After a rapid and short recovery in 2010 and 2011, it gradually fell into a downturn in the past two years.

China's instrument products have been in the state of import and export trade deficit for a long time. Since 2001, the trade deficit has continued to expand, and the deficit exceeded the export value before 2006. However, since 2005, the growth rate of exports has gradually exceeded that of imports, the growth rate of trade deficit has gradually narrowed, and the reverse balance has also been exceeded by exports. The trade deficit reached the highest US $17.16 billion in 2011, and then began to decrease.

Monthly import and export mixed

In terms of exports, after a short increase at the beginning of the year, the overall performance was sluggish in the first half of the year, and the growth rate remained stable in the second half of the year; In terms of imports, the monthly growth rate fluctuated greatly. Imports and exports increased slightly throughout the year, and the growth rate of exports continued to be higher than that of imports.

Instrument products are mainly divided into 12 categories. In terms of export, industrial automatic control systems and devices, optical instruments and medical instruments are the most important product categories. Industrial automatic control systems and devices (18.1%), electrical instruments and meters (11.1%), experimental and analytical instruments (14.6%) and weighing instruments (10.2%) have a rapid export growth rate. Only the export of measuring instruments and meters decreased year-on-year.

Industrial automatic control systems and devices, experimental and analytical instruments, medical instruments, optical instruments and electronic measuring instruments are the main categories of imported products. Optical instruments (20.9%), experimental and analytical instruments (15.8%) and medical instruments (7.1%) are the fastest growing import categories. Imports of other product categories have declined to varying degrees.

China's instrument products are in surplus only in the import and export trade of measuring instruments, weighing instruments, drawing calculation and measuring instruments with low technical content, while other categories of products are in trade deficit, especially industrial automatic control systems and devices with high technical content, electronic measuring instruments and medical instruments.

Asia is the main export market of China's instrument and meter products, accounting for more than half, followed by Europe and North America (mainly the United States), with exports accounting for 19%, and the export growth to the three markets also exceeded the average export growth. In addition, exports to Africa, Latin America and Oceania fell, especially to Africa.

The United States is China's largest import and export market for instrument and meter products, with exports of $4.64 billion in 2013, accounting for 18.3%, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year; Imports from the United States amounted to US $8.8 billion, accounting for 20.8%, with a year-on-year increase of 9.2% Among the top ten export markets, only the export to Japan fell, and the countries and regions with rapid export growth included Taiwan Province, Singapore, Germany, the Netherlands and India, with growth rates of 36.2%, 15.7%, 15.5%, 11.7% and 10.5% respectively

China's imports of instruments and meters from Asia accounted for 45.7%, 32% from Europe and 21.5% from North America, but the import growth from the above regions was small, especially the import from Asia increased by only 0.7% year-on-year The regions with rapid import growth are mainly Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, mainly because the import base from these regions is small, and the growth fluctuation is obvious.

In addition to the United States, the main countries and regions of imports are Japan, Germany, South Korea and Taiwan Province, but imports from Taiwan Province and South Korea increased rapidly, with 14.9% and 12.1% respectively, and imports from Germany and Japan increased by 3.7% and decreased by 8.7% respectively

China's export of instruments and meters through general trade accounted for the largest proportion, accounting for 44.8%, with a growth rate of 9.5%; Exports through processing trade accounted for 44.4%, with a growth rate of 3.6%; Processing trade is dominated by processing with imported materials, accounting for 41%, with a growth rate of 5.1%

Imports in general trade accounted for a larger proportion, 65.5%, with an increase of 6.5%; Imports in the form of processing trade accounted for 16%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.1%, of which imports in the form of processing with imported materials accounted for 13.9%, an increase of 1%

Guangdong is the province with the largest export of instrument and meter products in China, accounting for 32.2%, with a rapid growth of 14%; Followed by Jiangsu (accounting for 16.9%, down 0.3%), Shanghai (accounting for 14.1%, up 3.8%), Zhejiang (accounting for 9.3%, up 9.3%), Beijing (accounting for 6.3%, up 6.3%). The provinces and regions with rapid export growth are mainly Ningxia (up 131%), Guizhou (up 70.5%), Yunnan (54%), Xinjiang (52.9%), etc. in the west, mainly due to the small export base of these regions, resulting in huge fluctuations in growth.

Shanghai is the province with the largest import of instruments and meters, accounting for 21.3%, an increase of 9.2%; The following are Guangdong (accounting for 19.2%, an increase of 4%), Beijing (accounting for 16.2%, an increase of 5.6%), Jiangsu (accounting for 12.8%, a decrease of 3.1%).

In 2013, a total of 32106 enterprises in China exported instrument and meter products, and the top 100 enterprises accounted for 36.3% of exports. Most of the enterprises with high export ranking were foreign-funded enterprises; 38427 enterprises imported instruments and meters, and the top 100 enterprises accounted for 31.2% Relatively speaking, the concentration of instrument and meter import and export enterprises is not high, the amount is small and relatively scattered.

There is a clear gap between technology and foreign countries

Instrumentation is a high-tech industry. Instrumentation products are widely used in various fields of economy and society. Whether it is control devices, optical instruments, measuring instruments and analytical instruments, they have high requirements for the accuracy of control and the accuracy of analysis and measurement. At present, China's industrial development mostly depends on the advantages of low labor cost, intensive and rapid capital investment, which are difficult to play a role in the technology intensive industry of instrumentation.

The instrument industry has a wide variety of products, high technical content, small production batches and difficult to expand, limited market capacity, and small import and export scale, which is difficult to attract enterprises to make long-term and unremitting investment. However, the higher technical content also makes the added value of instrument products high. Although the output and export volume are difficult to expand rapidly, enterprises are easier to export through general trade, so the industry profit margin is relatively high.

The gap between the technical level and foreign products leads to the gap between Chinese products and foreign products. Some high-end instruments and meters can not even be independently developed and produced by Chinese enterprises, and the demand of the domestic market can only be met by imports. Due to the characteristics of the industry, it is difficult for China's instrument products to narrow the gap with foreign products in the short term. However, for some low-end products, Chinese enterprises have achieved good development results by taking advantage of low labor cost and large-scale production through technology introduction, digestion and absorption, and have certain market competitiveness. Chinese instrument and meter enterprises should continue to increase the introduction, digestion and absorption of technology while gradually improving their independent research and development capabilities, strengthen cooperation with universities and scientific research institutions, promote the combination of innovation and scientific research achievements with practical applications, improve the technical content and practicality of products, gradually from producing low-end products to testing high-end products, and narrow the gap with foreign products.