China pesticide supplier briefing: Buyers starting to place orders, group collaborations have begun

The annual ACE in Shanghai China was held as planned, with the participation of exhibitors and visitors who are still passionate about the event despite of the Covid-19 pandemic.  AgroPages visited the exhibition and talked to exhibitors and other visitors to capture snapshots of this year’s event, which is different from past years.

1.Purchase orders

Through talking to people both inside and outside the exhibition site, it was understood that, recently, overseas buyers have ended their wait-and-see position in the market and have begun to place orders. In fact, at the CPEW held in Hangzhou at the end of August, some manufacturers noted, from the presentations of overseas keynote speakers, that the “inventory is gradually decreasing," therefore, some have started to prepare stocks. This situation has now been proven at the ACE, where buyers have begun to place orders. Before the new capacities of some products are brought on stream, the prices of some technical materials have picked up. Some have also stated that the price of glufosinate has increased by Yuan3,000 per ton.

2.Start of collaborations 

"Going global in collaboration" has been demanded for many years by the industry, which has now become a reality. In the face of fierce competition between major agrochemical companies, some small but special enterprises with distinctive niche products have begun to cooperate with companies that have overseas marketing experience and overseas market operations capabilities with technical competency. In the years ahead, it is predicted that companies with operational abilities in the terminal market may further consolidate with high-quality Chinese domestic businesses towards a win-win situation.

3.Customer loyalty

Although there was no participation among overseas buyers and visitors this year, through communication with manufacturers, it was evident that suppliers with stable production and supply capacities are not worried about their businesses, stating:

"The absence of foreign companies in the event is not a bad thing. In the past, overseas customers coming to the exhibition were affected and distracted by various kinds of gossip, especially false information about the market. We conduct sufficient research and dynamic monitoring of our core products, so now our customers are more dependent on the information we provide. I feel that customer loyalty is getting stronger. "

"Our current business focus is not to develop new markets or attract new customers, but to maintain existing customers. What we do is to help them increase market sales. There are cases where customers we lost are now coming back to us, because they realized that it is important to find reliable and stable partners under the present circumstances."

4.Integration and combination   

On the ACE site, more and more "combined running companies" have appeared. Their booth sizes are getting larger and larger, where one single booth carrying the names of two, three or even more company logos, revealing the trend of integration and combination among agrochemical enterprises. These combined companies include the Syngenta Group China (Sinochem Agriculture, Syngenta, ADAMA and Yangnong Chemical), the Limin Group (Limin Chemical, Veyong Biochemical, Shuangji Chemical and Inner Mongolia New Veyong), the Zhengbang Group (Jiangxi Huihe Chemical), and Liben Crop Science and Inner Mongolia Lingsheng Crop Technology. The physical integration and combination of enterprises is easy to do, but organically consolidating the respective businesses and resources of each to take advantage of their combined operations requires careful thought and a longer time to prove.