Opportunities and Challenges in Packaging and Printing Industry (I)

The protocol on China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, signed in Qatar on November 11, 2001, means that China officially became the 143th member of the WTO since December 11, 2001, and China’s accession to the WTO It will have a far-reaching impact on China’s political, social, economic, and people’s lives.
After China's accession to the WTO, there are both opportunities and challenges. We must have a comprehensive understanding. We must not exaggerate the impact on our country and we must not underestimate the possible impact.
I. Outstanding Achievements In the past 50 years, China's packaging and printing industry has experienced a process of slow development and rapid development, from closed workshops to manual changes to industrialization and modernization. The great changes in China's packaging and printing industry, especially since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council attached great importance to the development of China's printing and technology equipment industry. In the early 1980s, in order to solve the book difficulties and change the backwardness of China's printing industry, under the care of leading comrades like Yao Yilin, Hu Qiaomu, Zhang Jinfu, Deng Liqun, at the time the State Economic Commission established the printing technology with Comrade Fan Muhan as the leader. The equipment coordination group was included in the national plan, and at the same time it proposed the 16-character guideline of “Laser photocopying, electronic color separation, offset printing, and binding linkage” to guide our country's printing technology. Bring unprecedented opportunities for the development of China's packaging and printing industry.
The packaging and printing industry plays an increasingly important role in the entire national economy. For the country as a whole, packaging and printing is a means of realizing the value of goods and the value of their use.
In the production process, packaging and printing is the last process. In the process of circulation, packaging and printing play an indispensable role in protecting commodities, beautifying commodities, promoting commodities, and storing, transporting, selling, and using commodities. Packaging and printing is the bridge between product production and sales. It has increasingly played an important role in increasing the added value of commodities, enhancing the competitiveness of commodities, opening up domestic and foreign markets, and creating foreign exchange for the country.
After more than 20 years of hard work since the reform and opening up, China’s packaging and printing industry has made a big step forward on the road to modernization, greatly narrowing the gap with advanced countries, and has formed a relatively rational production layout, relatively complete categories, and machinery , electronics, chemical industry as one of the system engineering; for the light industry, textiles, food, beverages, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, clothing, home appliances, toys and other industries supporting the extensive use of advanced technology industries. Packaging and printing companies in coastal areas and large and medium cities already have the ability to compete in the international market.
At present, among 82,189 printing enterprises of various types in the country, there are 20,409 packaging printing enterprises and about 1 million employees. In 2000, the total industrial output value reached 50 billion yuan (about one-third of the total output value of the printing industry). Each year about two-digit growth.
It can be said that since the 1990s, a profound technological revolution has taken place in China's packaging and printing industry. The history of "first-class products, second-class packaging and third-class prices" is over.
Over the years, local packaging and printing companies have seized the opportunity to deepen reforms, focusing mainly on the following seven areas. They have carried out fruitful work and achieved fruitful results. The industry has undergone tremendous changes.
(1) The enterprise reform has been deepened continuously, and the management level has been significantly improved;
(2) The plate making process bid farewell to "lead and fire" and went to "light and electricity";
(3) Grasping technological progress and making major changes in printing technology;
(4) The development of ISO9000 quality system certification has promoted the improvement of product quality;
(5) The growth of security printing products has promoted the development of packaging and printing companies;
(6) Pay close attention to talent development and achieved remarkable results;
(7) To achieve better social and economic benefits.
Second, the main gap Although China's packaging and printing industry has made great progress, but compared with foreign countries, there is still a large gap.
The main surface is:
The structure of industry and products is irrational and development is uneven. The overall level of printing equipment is backward, high-quality printing equipment, high-grade printing equipment still need to import, fine print processing capacity is insufficient. The regional development is unbalanced. The packaging and printing industry in the east, southeast, and some coastal cities is relatively developed. The development of the packaging and printing industry in the west, southwest, northwest, and small and medium-sized cities lags behind.
The major gaps compared with developed countries and regions are:
(I) China is a big printing country, but it is not yet a printing power.
In today's world, the printing and graphic communication industry has become one of the pillar industries for the development of national economies in industrially advanced countries and regions. In the United States, for example, in 1998, the total output value of the printing and graphic communication industry was as high as 228 billion U.S. dollars (equivalent to a quarter of China's GDP that year), and the industry scale (employees and institutions) was second only to the U.S. catering industry. The printing industry in the image communication industry is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the United States. In 1999, sales exceeded US$155.7 billion. The total number of employees has exceeded 1.173 million, and the total number of companies is more than 50,000. (To be continued)