Global Demand for Valve Products Slides: Enhancing Competitiveness is an Urgent Priority

Valves are critical core components of large-scale process installations, mainly used for cutting off, throttling, pressure regulation and reversing the flow of media such as materials, water, steam, air and oil products.

With a wide variety of specifications, extensive application scenarios and large consumption volume, valves are categorized into industrial valves and civil valves. Industrial valves are primarily applied to regulate medium flow, pressure, temperature, liquid level and other process parameters in industrial automatic control systems.

In the global industrial valve market, oil and natural gas pipeline transmission and distribution sectors account for the largest share, followed by demand from power and chemical industries. At home, chemical engineering, energy & electric power, and oil & gas industries remain the top three major consumer markets for valves. In the coming years, driven by rapid domestic economic growth, rising industrial automation, national industrial transformation and upgrading, and continuous investment growth in oil & gas, petrochemical, environmental protection, electric power and metallurgy sectors, China’s industrial valve market will maintain steady expansion.

At present, domestic valve manufacturers are capable of designing and producing a full range of valves in compliance with global standards including ISO, DIN and AWWA. The product quality of some leading enterprises has reached world advanced level, and the overall industry capability has greatly improved, with partial products entering overseas markets.

However, compared with international advanced peers, China’s valve industry still faces fierce internal competition. Over 90% of domestic manufacturers are small and micro-sized enterprises, most of which lag behind in technical capability and remain confined to the low-end market segment. This leads to weak international competitiveness and insufficient high-end product development capacity.

In recent years, amid international trade frictions, domestic market demand has contracted and the industry’s foreign trade has encountered headwinds. Official statistics show that China’s valve export volume maintained an overall upward fluctuation between 2017 and 2019:

- 2018: Total export value reached USD 16.624 billion, up 13.5% year-on-year

- 2019: Export value slightly declined to USD 16.231 billion, a 0.02% year-on-year drop

Industry experts suggest that qualified enterprises should accelerate industrial upgrading, expand into the mid-to-high end market, and increase R&D investment in high-end products for key national fields such as oil and nuclear power, to close the gap with global leaders and lift international competitiveness.

Currently, China’s sound economic situation and continuous favorable policy support have created a favorable development environment for the valve sector. Despite remaining gaps with world-leading products, domestic manufacturers can build on existing foundations, pursue independent innovation, and build globally competitive Chinese valve brands by further improving product quality and technical sophistication to capture greater global market share.