Overview of The Import And Export of Plant Extracts in 2023

|

 Plant extracts were exported in price for market, and imports fell

Plant extract is the main raw material in the import and export products of Chinese medicine, accounting for 50% of the foreign trade of Chinese medicine.

Common plant extracts include bladderwrack extract, curcumin, ginseng extract, etc. For export alone, plant extracts accounted for 60%. Since 2013-2023, the export of plant extracts has experienced three major stages: rapid growth period (2013-2015), adjustment and balance period (2016-2020), and explosive growth period (2020-2022).

In particular, the new round of growth of global health products consumption caused by the epidemic, the total export of plant extracts reached a record high of 3.53 billion US dollars in 2022. The year 2023 is the first year of the normalization of the epidemic. As a whole, the overseas market shows a trend of declining demand and destocking, and the epidemic "dividend" of the plant extract industry disappears. The export of plant extracts had a large year-on-year decline.

|

 Growth in export volume of plant essential oil extracts

In 2023, the export volume of essential oil plant extracts was us $400 million, down 3.8% year on year, while the export volume increased significantly to 28,000 tons, with a growth rate of 21%. The export volume of non-essential oil plant extracts was us $2.91 billion, down 6.2% year on year, and the export volume was 83,000 tons, down 1.5% year on year. The export volume was still negative. On the one hand, the inventory is that overseas customers is high, which is still in the state of inventory consumption, and the overall demand is reduced. On the other hand, the overseas competition is more fierce, which leads to the recovery of plant extract products.

According to the quarterly statistics in 2023 the essential oil plant extract export situation further analysis, four quarters of exports show the following trend: down 9.4% in the first quarter (compared with the other quarter), down 2.4% in the second quarter, cut continued to narrow to 0.5% in the third quarter, export quantity from negative to positive, growth of 7.5%. The trend of quarterly exports narrowing year-on-year indicates that overseas markets have shifted from destocking to increasing procurement efforts.

|

Competition in overseas markets

In terms of the average export price, the trend of the average export price in the four quarters of 2023 is basically a gradual decline, dropping from us $37.47 / kg in the first quarter to us $28.87 / kg in the fourth quarter. Combined with the analysis of the change of the export volume, the current export volume of plant extracts remains relatively stable, at the expense of the product price. This also shows that the competition in overseas markets is in a white-hot stage.

The plant extracts imported from China are mainly essential oils, and they are mainly refined and exported overseas. During the epidemic period, import trade was affected, and import processing was blocked accordingly. The threshold of refined purification is relatively low. Overseas enterprises fill the gap period and undertake part of the refined purification business in the supply chain, which leads to the great volatility of the import of plant extracts in China in recent years. From 2013 to 2019, the growth of market demand increased the import of animal and plant extracts. Since 2020, the import of plant extracts has declined significantly, and it is still in a fluctuation adjustment period since 2021. In 2023, plant extract imports amounted to us $680 million, down 12.7% year on year.