Wu Yuanzhong: Pursuing additional development in zirconium silicate market with superior quality

Asian Metal: Could you give us a brief introduction of your company?

Wu: We started from late 1995 with very rough craft in producing zirconium silicate and, with more than 10 years of development, our techniques upgrade to the fourth generation--superfine grinding techniques. By this craft, we generate zero emission discharge and zero pollution. With about 5,000tpm production capacity, we currently are operating at about 80% capacity. During the past year when the market situation was not good and the outputs of most producers stood at about 1/3 of their capacity, our output and sales were still near 1/2 of our capacity.

Asian Metal: As we know, zirconium silicate market turns weak from early of last year with very fierce competition among producers, then how could your company remain largely unaffected in such bad market situation?

Wu: Most overseas major zirconium silicate producers came to China to set up factories, such as ATO, Bitossi and other companies several years ago, and they are also our major competitors in Chinese market. Owning to resilience of our workforce and brand our products quality ranking higher than most others in zirconium silicate industry, our prices in the market are about RMB300-500/t higher.

Asian Metal: We all know that the profit margin of zirconium silicate industry is very low now; do you consider embarking on any expansion projects in other zirconium products industry?

Wu: Although zirconium silicate industry is low profit given fierce competition and high production cost, we pay more attention to two key points. For one, we manage to reduce the raw material purchasing cost in order to control our production cost; secondly, we work hard on our products quality so that we could set up our good brand in the market. We believe that quality is the vitality of company; with good quality we can stand tall among competitors.

Asian Metal: Zirconium silicate market is in fierce price competition among most producers, how about your idea on this issue?

Wu: Yes, zirconium silicate market is experiencing fierce price competition right now because of so many new players. However, we think that the market is intended to stabilize. We would not engage in price wars, as we have leverage on quality of our product, and we just need to try our hard in raw material purchasing and good techniques craft.

Asian Metal: How do you think about current ceramic market?

Wu: As we know, the ceramic market appears to be seeing more activity now. Ceramic products have two major markets, that is export market and domestic market. China is famous in ceramics products export in overseas market and Chinese ceramic products take up a great share in overseas market. Although we encounter some anti-dumping policy from Europe and other countries, Chinese exporters still manage to sell our ceramic products to overseas market. On the other hand, the domestic market demand for ceramic products is huge too, such as some major cities and Chinese rural market. At present, ceramic market is better than that last year, the market is rebounding.

Asian Metal: How do you think about Chinese zirconium industry’s outlook?

Wu: As there are hundreds, even thousands of zirconium industries in the market, we take a positive attitude to the development of those zirconium industries. However, cutting-edge technology in zirconium industries is held by Japan, America and Europe. We believe with the development of Chinese economy, Chinese zirconium producers would develop very well in the next 5 or 10 years. Taking our factory as an example; it was our vision to surpass overseas major zirconium silicate producers in quality three years ago. While, no matter what in quality or in output, we indeed surpassed those major companies. In addition, Chinese government is encouraging most producers to undertake research and development in zirconium products deep procession field. We believe that most producers could step out of current difficulty and pursue their own defined path in both product development and technology.

Asian Metal: Thank you again for being with me in the interview and wish everything goes well for your work in the future.

Wu: Thanks.