Because of the European debt crisis, many European countries are striving to cut government spending, balance the budget, leading to a dramatic shrink of lighting-related government procurement and municipal construction projects. After the economic crises in 2008, Chinese led lights market and South East Asian market are two first recovered markets all over the world. Infrastructure will largely promote the development of their lighting market, including LED market. In 2012, WTO predicted that China will be new LED strategic stronghold.
With the economy development, China and South East Asia speeded up the urbanization process. LED lighting no doubt played an important role during this process. Indoor lighting, outdoor lighting, lighting for industrial purpose, lighting for commercial purpose, etc. There will be an sharply increase in LED lighting products demand.
ASEAN is now the world’s third largest regional organization after North America and the European Union, with a population of 576 million. The GDP has reached 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2011. The China-ASEAN Free Trade Policy also made them as another LED strategic stronghold. China is the world largest production base of LED products, having formed a whole industrial chain in upstream, midstream and downstream. Industrial advantages are quite obvious. Meanwhile the mainland market also has great potential for development. However, in every part of the entire industry chain, there are a lot of competitions. Small and medium sized companies were hard to survive. With the implement of China-ASEAN Free Trade Policy, China’s giant LED suppliers turned their attention on this virgin land. “ASEAN market is an waiting-to-be-developed market. It is a virgin land to domestic LED manufacturers. LED lighting market was no longer an emerging market. Intense competitions made them more like to choose overseas market.” Said one of the government officials.
According to the new reports released by the Vietnamese Ministry of Construction, the national urbanization level Vietnam will reach up to 35% in 2015. The expected investment is 23 billion dollars from 2011 to 2015 and 27 billion dollars from 2016 to 2020. Thus, LED lighting will enjoy a huge expansion potential in the ASEAN market. There is no doubt that ASEAN will be the new LED strategic stronghold for China’s LED enterprises. This is a wise strategic layout of them in the global economic crisis.