Market changes in raw materials accelerate the transformation of lighter manufac

Regional market analysts from Tootoo.com said that，860,000 SMEs in Zhejiang encountered crisis of survival due to rising raw material prices, the appreciation of the RMB and other reasons in recent years. Among them, the labor-intensive enterprises, especially lighter manufacturing plants are in serious trouble because of non-ferrous metal prices climbing and human resources costs increasing, etc.

Editors from Non-ferrous metal industry channel of Tootoo.com interviewed a manager of a lighter company, who said that his factory has just received from a foreign company a 2 million lighters order, each ex-factory price was just 0.92 U.S. dollars. Although the profit was just a few cents each lighter, the manager had to accept. It is hard to get an order like this, since less than 100 plants among more than 500 lighter manufacturers in Wenzhou can start production.

Wenzhou is China's metal lighters manufacturing base (Related Company: Wenzhou Lucheng Yikang Lighter Factory , who shares 70 percent of global lighter market. However, lighter exports have dropped sharply since last year, by reason of the increasing prices of plastics and chemical raw materials as well as non-ferrous metal alloy such as copper, zinc, and the appreciation of the RMB.

Therefore, the local lighter manufacturing plants are eyeing the high value-added products, to replace the traditional products. In the interview, the manager told editors of Tootoo.com that they newly developed a "hurricane lamp lighters", with huge amounts of money, which can be used at the plateau section at an altitude of 2,500 meters. Seizing the market blind spots, the product exported to Mexico, Colombia and other countries then brought back a large number of orders. Developing high-end lighters and industrial upgrading is the way out for the Wenzhou lighter industry currently.

Exports from Tootoo.com analysis that, the cost of the traditional lighter has increased by 20 percent, as the raw material and labor costs rising, which brings almost no profit. In contrast, the profits of the "hurricane lamp lighters" are as high as 40 percent, with the same increase in the cost of the circumstances.

To this end, the Zhejiang government decided to open up the international and domestic markets，to broaden financing channels and to take various measures, to help the enterprises out of the trouble. Not long ago, in the "government-enterprise interaction" services, the relevant departments of Wenzhou government have listed the difficulties encountered by the lighter industry into the response program.