Briefly

Industrial robot sales decline in 2019

China's industrial robot market continued to shrink in 2019 but remained the world's largest for the seventh straight year, according to the China Robot Industry Alliance. Sales of industrial robots fell by 8.6 percent on a yearly basis in China to 144,000 units last year. The decline was 7.7 percentage points deeper than in 2018. Sales of foreign brands were about 99,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 12.2 percent, while sales of domestic brands were about 45,000 units, a slight increase of 0.8 percent. The CRIA expects China's industrial robot market to post growth this year.

Coke output falls by 0.9% in first 9 months

Coke output fell by 0.9 percent on a yearly basis to 350.86 million metric tons during the first nine months of this year in China, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Coke is a product made from bituminous coal, which burns with no smoke. The decline narrowed by 1.6 percentage points from the drop in the January-June period. The profitability of China's coke producers gradually recovered during the same period, the ministry said. For instance, in China's major coke-producing province of Shanxi, the operating revenue of coke producers fell 9.3 percent year-on-year to 132.93 billion yuan ($20 billion) in the first three quarters, with the decline narrowing by 6.3 percentage points from that in the first half of this year.

Xinhua