Focus on the current competitiveness of coal industry in China: Has the depression time gone?

Abstract

Since 2012 the coal industry in China has deeply fallen into depression. When entering into 2015, the tragedy continued. What the future of China's coal is has confused the scholars and managers. In order to evaluate the current competitiveness of coal industry in China, the diamond model is employed in present study to analyze the influence of six components on the competitiveness, namely factor condition, demand condition, related and support department, firm strategy, structure and rivalry, government, chance. The result of diamond model shows that the coal industry suffers from excessive capacity, low industry concentration ratio, low price and low investment, etc. The current competitiveness of coal industry in China is not satisfactory. Fortunately, China government has issued lists of policies to recover the industry. Besides, some strategic plans provide great chances for the recovery of coal industry. At the end of this paper, a gear model is applied to design a dynamic competitiveness improvement mechanism of coal industry in China. The model shows that the power comes from the coal industry itself is the main active force to impel the improvement of coal industry competitiveness, and the government, chance, related and support department play accessory but indispensable roles.