Industry Activities 

FINET (Hong Kong pres) reports the machinery parts maker and service provider, Shanghai Prime Machinery, released its full year sales record for 2018. The group's revenue last year grew 6.5% to RMB 9.03 billion, with a comprehensive gross profit of 19.7%, down 0.2% from 2017's 19.9%. The gross profit of the fastener business, the biggest contributor to the group's revenue, saw a minor decline mostly because the automotive market weakened in China and Europe and the gross profit slipped down due to the price factor.  The vice president said the overall gross profit may have slipped a little last year, but the fastener business with an increasing proportion will improve in the future. He said the group is deploying for "Shanghai Prime Machinery- Pan Asia" to target Southeast Asia and India.

The general manager said the trade conflict between the U.S. and China has brought bigger uncertainty to the international trade environment. The conflict has a certain level of effect on the group's export to the U.S. For one, some of the acquisitions may have been suspended. For the other, the group imports a great deal of raw materials from the U.S. and it increased the cost last year. The vice president said the income from exporting to the U.S. used to grow 10% annually. Since the trade conflict, the growth slowed. He said if the U.S. and China could find common ground, the income growth from exporting to the U.S. could return to over 10%.