The world's major mold manufacturers include Japan, South Korea and Chinese Mainland in Asia, the United States in the Americas and Germany in Europe. This article aims to introduce the mold industry in various countries, analyze the competitiveness of China's mold industry, and compare it with the mold industry in other countries.

1. Mold industry in various countries

In the world's major mold production and consumption countries, mold manufacturing enterprises and employees in Chinese Mainland account for the vast majority. State owned enterprises account for 70%, and foreign-funded enterprises also account for a relatively large proportion. Some large mold factories have 600-700 employees, and some even have thousands of mold workers. Taking cikmold company as an example, it is a large enterprise certified by ISO 9001, specializing in injection molding, mold manufacturing, mold manufacturing, casting molds, rubber molds, mold design, die-casting and other industries, with nearly 6000 employees in China. Medium sized enterprises have 150-300 workers, while small mold factories have at least 50 workers. However, the mold industry in other countries is mainly dominated by small and medium-sized factories.
In terms of product categories, Japan and Chinese Mainland concentrated on injection molds and plastic molds in 2009, accounting for more than 80%. In terms of market applications, automotive molds are mainly manufactured in Japan, South Korea, the United States, and Germany, while electronic and telecommunications molds are mainly manufactured in China.
According to the import and export situation of each country, Japan, South Korea and Germany are powerful mold export oriented countries, while Chinese Mainland and the United States are powerful mold import oriented countries, whose domestic production cannot meet the demand of large mold market, and must rely on imports. The analysis of the report of import and export countries in 2009 shows that most countries are neighbors, but what is unusual is that Japan mainly exports molds to the United States, and because of the rapid development of China's economy, Japan is turning its attention to the Chinese Mainland.
In terms of salary, according to the 2009 white paper on mold industry released by the U.S. Foreign Trade Commission, German engineers have the highest salary, followed by Japan and the United States, and Chinese Mainland has the lowest salary. Obviously, there is a big gap between Chinese Mainland and other countries in terms of labor costs.

2. Advantages and disadvantages of mold industries in various countries

Japan, the United States, Germany and other technologically advanced countries are in a leading position in designing and manufacturing high-precision composite molds, with a large number of skilled R&D personnel. Japanese mold manufacturers focus on polishing and grinding, while German mold manufacturers place greater emphasis on improving efficiency and accuracy to save processing time. In the market, the production or domestic demand of the Japanese mold industry has significantly decreased. In terms of operating costs, facing high wages and benefits, downstream industries and mold manufacturers are gradually shifting their production bases to surrounding emerging industrial parks and underdeveloped countries to reduce labor costs and enhance price competitiveness. However, this will inevitably lead to technology leasing and stimulate these countries to invest more development funds and expand gas processing and design technologies.
Compared with the above countries, Chinese Mainland and South Korea lack technology, but have a large number of cheap labor, which makes their products more competitive in the market.

3. Conclusion

Overall, mold production enterprises are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises. Therefore, they often encounter difficulties in collecting operating costs, and without the support of government and tax incentives, it is difficult for them to remain strong. Except for Chinese Mainland and South Korea, other countries are facing the problem of high labor costs. The only way to solve this problem is to improve the added value of products.