Mold enterprises should transform cut-throat competition into win-win cooperation through collaboration and integration, break the narrow-minded idea that "competitors are enemies", and maintain fair and healthy competition in the mold market through industry self-regulation.
    In recent years, the pace of structural adjustment in the mold industry has accelerated, mainly manifested in the faster development speed of large, precision, complex, long-life molds and mold standard parts than the overall development speed of the industry; the proportion of plastic molds and die-casting molds has increased; the number and capacity of professional mold manufacturers oriented to the market have increased rapidly. The future development direction of China's automotive mold companies should focus on the adjustment and positioning of product structure, further improve the manufacturing technology level of molds, and occupy the high-end mold market with complex structure, high precision and high technological content.
    According to Yubo Zhiye Market Research Center, with the continuous deepening of the reform and opening-up policy, the attention and support of relevant national departments to the mold industry, coupled with the publicity and promotion of social organizations such as the mold industry association, Zhejiang's mold industry has achieved more rapid development, and its mold market scale ranks among the top in the country.
    During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the overall trend of the mold market is steadily upward. At present, the domestic market has a huge demand for medium and high-grade molds, but it requires domestic molds to meet users' needs in terms of quality and delivery time. Moreover, the home appliance, automobile and plastic products industries have the largest demand for molds. In terms of the international market: in recent years, labor costs in industrialized countries have increased, and they are shifting to developing countries, especially Southeast Asian countries. Their domestic production mainly focuses on high and precision molds, and molds with large labor input rely on imports to solve. Therefore, the international market potential for low and medium-grade molds is very huge. As long as the quality of domestic molds can be improved and the delivery time can be guaranteed, the prospect of mold exports is very optimistic. In addition, the international market also has a large demand for mold bases and mold standard parts. At present, China only has a small amount of exports of mold bases.
    Although China's total mold production has ranked third in the world, and there are some manufacturers with relatively good overall level in the industry, the current characteristics of the domestic mold industry are that the technological conditions of manufacturers are uneven and the gap is large. A considerable part are private enterprises or individual households, limited by many factors such as capital, site, technology and information exchange. Some manufacturers rely on traditional equipment and manual manufacturing, and can only produce some low and medium-grade molds, making it difficult to introduce advanced mold-making technology and equipment. This has led to intensified competition in the low and medium-grade mold market. Some mold enterprises even reduce prices mutually to get orders, and low prices will inevitably affect product quality, resulting in harm to users, peers and themselves.
    From the Research Report on Market Prospect Analysis and Investment Development Planning of China's Mold Industry, we know that the focus of the future development of the mold industry is those that can meet the massive demand and have high technological content, especially the large, precision, complex, long-life molds that are currently not self-sufficient in China and need to be imported in large quantities, and those that can represent the development direction. In addition, due to the large price advantage of China's mold products in the international market, the mold products with good export prospects will also become the focus of development.
    Looking back 10 years ago, the precision of precision molds was generally 5 microns. With the passage of time, the precision of molds will be higher and higher. Now it has reached 2~3 microns, and soon molds with 1 micron precision will be on the market. This requires ultra-precision machining. The mold industry will become increasingly large-scale. This is due to the increasing size of parts formed by molds and the development of multi-cavity molds required for high production efficiency. Multi-functional composite molds in the mold industry will be further developed. New-type multi-functional composite molds not only stamp formed parts, but also undertake assembly tasks such as lamination, tapping, riveting and locking, and the performance requirements for steel are getting higher and higher.
    In particular, the household hardware industry needs continuous development and innovation, the industry's demand for household hardware is increasing, and the household hardware industry is showing different changes. Many furniture hardware manufacturers invisibly separate the two, decorative hardware does not pay attention to functional development, functional hardware lacks research and development on its decorativeness, and there is a disconnect between the two.
    The mold industry is an important part of China's hardware industry. The 12th Five-Year Plan period is a critical period for China to properly respond to major changes in the domestic and foreign development environment and accelerate the realization of the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, as well as a critical period for the healthy development of China's mold manufacturing industry. Although there are many uncertain factors in the domestic and foreign environment, China's economic development is still in a period of rapid growth. China's molds still have comparative advantages in the international mold market, the domestic mold market is also expected to continue to be optimistic, and the development of the mold industry shows a general trend