欢迎猪年!
以及它可能带来的所有挑战
It is always exciting to start over again a new year after two great weeks of holiday relaxing with the family and not really thinking too much about our different businesses. It certainly helps a lot after specially when we had a difficult year full of challenges and stressful situations. We all come back with our batteries fully charged and ready to face any future obstacles ahead of us.
在和家庭一起放松而不需要想太多生意的两周假期之后,新一年的开启总是令人激动。这样的假期肯定很有帮助,特别是当我们刚度过一个充满着挑战和压力的困难的年头之后,我们都充好电回归,准备好迎接任何将要面临的障碍。
During this time of holiday in China I went to Mexico and USA as I always do to spend time with the family and work a bit in our corporate offices there but skipped attending CEVISAMA in Valencia Spain where I usually go to keep myself updated with anything that happens with our ceramic industry. I did not go but we had a big group of people from the company, 10 persons in total between Mexico, USA and one person from our operation in China.
在这个中国假期里,我像往常一样去了墨西哥和美国,我花时间陪家人,还回到北美总部办公室工作,但是今年我没有去参加西班牙瓦伦西亚的CEVISAMA展,往常我都会去观展了解陶瓷行业所发生的任何最新动向。虽然我没有去,但是我们公司有一个10人团队去了,包括来自墨西哥、美国以及我们中国公司的团队。
One of the most noticeable things about the fair that was pretty obvious was the lack of people from China. The fair seemed to be busy not busier than last year but at least at the same level but this time there was NO people from China, and if there were some you could probably could count them with your fingers. The lack of attending people from China could be because of two reasons: The proximity of the days of the fair with the main holiday of Chinese New Year and the second one because simply for China this fair is not as important for them.
关于这次展会,最引人注意的事情之一很明显就是缺乏来自中国的观展者。这次展会看上去挺繁忙的,就算不比去年更加热闹至少也是同等水平,但是这次没有来自中国的观展者,就算有一些的话你也可以一手数下来。来自中国观展者的缺席可能是两个原因:第一是展会时间和中国新年假期很接近,第二个原因则是因为对中国来说这个展会不是那么重要。
I saw the summary from our people and a few other reports from the fair related to attendance, booths, awards, product, design, applications and trends and it seems to me without a doubt that this fair is worth attending to keep yourself updated without losing continuity of what it is happening with our industry.
我看了来自我们团队的总结以及来自展会的一些其它报道,关于参展人数、展位、奖项、产品、设计、应用以及趋势,它看上去对我来说毫无疑问这是一个值得参加的展会,它可以让你持续保持更新,不会错失任何我们行业发生的事情。
What we see in CERSAIE in October settles and solidify what really start to become the true trends of the industry. We see many things in Bologna Italy during CERSAIE but not necessarily all of them become a solid stable trend and I think CEVISAMA provides you with the first answers as you see during this time in late January or early February what the different Spanish brands and some Italian Brands are betting on becoming a trend.
我们10月份在CERSAIE展上所看到的,初步奠定并且巩固了什么将真正成为行业的趋势,但是并不是它们所有都能够成为真正稳定的趋势,我认为在一月底或者二月初的CERVISAMA给你提供了第一个答案,不同的西班牙品牌以及一些意大利品牌在押宝哪些东西将成为趋势。
And even though there were not many surprises you always see things that you thought they wouldn’t become popular and they do and others that you think they would and they simply don’t become popular. And always, always you see something new!
而就算那里惊喜没有那么多,你总是能看到一些事情,你认为它们不会流行的却流行起来,而其它的你觉得会流行的却没有流行。总是如此,你总是看到一些新的东西!
Not only in Italy you see new things, Spain always has something to offer, something that you didn’t see in Italy and that is the reason that this fair is important.
不仅仅在意大利见到新的东西,西班牙也永远有些东西给到你,一些你在意大利见不到的东西,而这就是这个展会重要的原因。
On another note, it seemed to me that this holiday period was longer than usual for most companies. During the better times I was used to see only like a 10-day holiday season for the office people and two to three week for the factory people. But this time I saw companies giving the people 3 and up to 4 weeks’ vacation and the factories were shut down a longer period of time up to 3 months!
另一方面,对我来说,这个假期对于大部分企业来说都比以往更长。在更好的光景里,我经常看到办公室人员放十来天假,工厂人员放2到3个礼拜的假,但是这一次我看到企业们放了3到4个礼拜的假,工厂停窑时间也比以往更长,最多竟去到3个月!
While this is understandable in some way I hope it doesn’t become the new standard. I also noticed the panic mode that some brands or businesses are getting into because of the tense commercial relationship between China and the USA, and the potential 25% duty increase to Chinese ceramic goods. As the time of the final decision approaches on March 31st, the brands that highly depend on exports to the USA must be going through a very stressful time. And even if we like it or not if this happens which obviously I hope it doesn’t, it will bring hell to our domestic market and an excess supply that will make things extremely difficult; so difficult that we could see massive brand closings and the beginning of a completely new era for the Chinese Ceramic industry. We don’t want to see any of that and I don’t think anyone is ready to face this extreme situation. Nevertheless, I noticed that some companies are starting to take some safety measures just in case…
在某种程度上这些都是可以理解的,但是我希望它不会成为新的标准。我同样注意到了很多品牌和行业正在进入恐慌模式,因为中美之间紧张的商业关系以及可能增加到中国陶瓷产品上的25%关税。随着最终决定日期3月31日的临近,那些高度依赖美国出口的品牌肯定正在经历一段非常有压力的时间。而不管我们喜欢与否,如果这发生的话,当然了我希望不会,它会我们国内市场带来灾难,超量的供给将会把情况变得非常困难;如此困难以至于我们会看到很多品牌倒闭以及中国陶瓷行业的一个全新纪元的开始。我们不希望看到任何这些发生,我也不认为有谁已经准备好了面临这些极端形势。但不管怎么说,我注意到了一些企业为防万一已经开始采取一些安全措施……
Anyway, I want to wish all of you the best for this coming year and I hope you all have success with your different businesses.
不管怎样,我想要给你们所有人这一年最好的祝愿,我希望大家都能在不同的行业取得成功。
Let’s all hope for the best but at the same time be ready and prepare for the worst!
让我们都希冀着最好的,同时准备好迎接最坏的!
Humberto Valles
ICC General Manager
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