This year s Chinese New Year, have you fired a cannon?

For many people before 00, the biggest symbol or expectation of the Spring Festival must include: setting off firecrackers.

I would most like to be able to set off fireworks during the Chinese New Year. ”

This may be the same expectation of many people before the Chinese New Year.

Some time ago, the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress said that the regulations on the complete ban on the sale and burning of fireworks and firecrackers should be revised.

This seems to be seen as a signal of the relaxation and relaxation of the "ban" on fireworks.

In practice, however, most cities still maintain the previous "ban on burning".

Behind the sound of firecrackers, Liuyang, Hunan, the "hometown of fireworks", feels the most real.

Firecrackers are also one of the most common scenes in previous New Year paintings.

There is a saying in the field of firecracker and fireworks industry in China, "In China, for every two firecrackers that are lit, one comes from Liuyang." ”

According to data, the fireworks and firecrackers produced in Liuyang account for about 80% of the domestic market share and about 60% of the world market share.

Liuyang is a county-level city under the administration of Changsha, located on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi, in the northeast of Hunan Province, with a population of nearly 1.5 million.

The local area is rich in sulfur, which is an important raw material for making gunpowder, and the territory is dominated by red soil, which provides good natural conditions for high-quality raw materials for firecrackers, such as fir wood, bamboo, sulfur, red soil, etc.

Counting up, Liuyang's large-scale fireworks industry has a history of hundreds of years.

Since the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, there have been many family workshops producing fireworks and firecrackers in Liuyang City.

Liuyang's local fireworks manufacturing.

Because of the development of the fireworks industry, there was a saying in the ** period: "In the past, there were no beggars in Liuyang King Kong White Market, and there were few hungry people in famine years. ”

After the reform and opening up, Liuyang is an important production and marketing base of fireworks in the country.

Chinese people have always paid attention to three things during the New Year: eating Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, eating dumplings, and setting off firecrackers.

For Chinese people, completing these three things is the standard for the New Year, and all of them are indispensable.

At that time, even the most frugal Chinese families would buy some Liuyang-made "two kicks" and "one thousand hangings" to put them aside to feel the atmosphere of the New Year.

The well-known "Liuyang Flower Cannon" has also been recognized by the society.

In 2003, "Liuyang Flower Cannon" became a geographical indication of origin; In 2006, "Liuyang Fireworks" was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list; In 2007, "Liuyang Firecracker" also won the title of China's well-known trademark.

Because of this, from 1992 to 2012, Liuyang's fireworks industry experienced "20 years of happiness", and the output value soared from 400 million yuan to 27.7 billion yuan, an increase of 70 times.

At that time, there were more than 1,000 fireworks and firecrackers production enterprises in Liuyang; There are 400,000 people working in the city related to the fireworks industry, and almost one in three people works in a fireworks business.

For a time, more than 50% of Liuyang's tax revenue came from the fireworks industry.

2015-2021 Liuyang Firecracker Industry Cluster Gross Output Value **DT Finance.

In its heyday, Liuyang fireworks once occupied about 80% of the domestic fireworks market share, and the foreign market share was as high as 60%.

In 2020, the total export value of Liuyang fireworks was 29800 million yuan, accounting for 60% of the country's total fireworks and firecrackers exports.

In the same year, according to the U.S. Fireworks Association, 75 percent of the fireworks used in large-scale performances in the United States were produced in China, and 98 percent of fireworks set off by individuals came from China.

Almost all fireworks at festivals in the United States come from China.

Other data is more intuitive, in 2020, the United States imported 3$700 million in fireworks, of which Chinese fireworks accounted for 3$5.7 billion.

It is under the background of "in full swing" that Liuyang also gave birth to China's first listed company with fireworks and firecrackers as its main business.

On August 28, 2001, Liuyang Fireworks was listed and traded on the Shanghai ** Stock Exchange (later renamed Panda Fireworks, and renamed Panda Financial Holding in 2015), realizing the leapfrog development of the enterprise.

No one expected that more than 20 years later, the "panda" that represents China's fireworks industry in the capital market is still the only seedling, and has even become a ST panda.

Panda Fireworks, which once provided fireworks for the Beijing Olympics and is known as the "first share of fireworks", sold a total of 600,000 cases in Beijing in 2009, but by 2019, that number had fallen to 230,000 boxes, which has shrunk by more than ninety percent in ten years.

The number of fireworks enterprises in China from 2012 to 2022 Unit: 10,000.

Data**: Huajing Research Institute Research Report Chart: Market Value List.

One of the problems encountered by this industry, which best represents China's national characteristics, is the ban on burning.

Since the end of the 80s of the last century, experts have continuously suggested that fireworks should not be set off during the Chinese New Year, which can reduce urban air pollution and avoid many fires caused by improper fireworks.

Indeed, almost every year at that time, tragic accidents caused by the production, storage, transportation, and discharge of fireworks were reported in the newspapers, which is worrying.

With the increasing number of voices against the use of fireworks and firecrackers during the Chinese New Year, in 1992, out of consideration for the safety and air quality of fireworks, Guangzhou was the first to ban fireworks. In 1993, Beijing followed suit, thus starting the prelude to the "fire ban" that lasted for more than 30 years.

Although many places have also issued "fire bans", they have not yet formed a national "game of chess" situation.

It wasn't until 2014 that smog began to envelop the land of China.

At that time, experts said that every year on Chinese New Year's Eve and Lantern Festival, there will be a significant peak in pollution concentration, which has a lot to do with the fireworks and fireworks.

As a result, under the dual requirements of safety and environmental protection, many cities and regions across the country began to introduce a "ban on burning", and in the past ten years, it has reached its peak.

According to the official ** article of the China Fireworks and Firecrackers Association: as of the end of January 2018, a total of 803 cities across the country banned fireworks and firecrackers, an increase of 81% year-on-year, including 3 municipalities directly under the central government, including: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai; 16 provincial capitals; 153 prefecture-level cities; There are 631 counties (cities) and cities. At the same time, 923 cities have introduced policies to restrict the use of fireworks and firecrackers, an increase of 21% year-on-year, including 1 municipality directly under the central government, namely Chongqing; 9 provincial capitals; 146 prefecture-level cities; There are 767 counties (cities) and cities.

In fact, the impact on the Liuyang fireworks industry is not only the "ban on burning", but also the special operation mode that restricts the fireworks industry in Liuyang and even the whole country.

Speaking of which, Liuyang, Hunan Province is not the only fireworks industry base in the country.

In addition to Liuyang, there are Liling in Hunan, Shangli in Jiangxi and Wanzai.

The output of fireworks in these four border counties and cities in Hunan and Jiangxi once accounted for nearly ninety percent of the national market.

China's fireworks Golden Triangle region **Zhuzhou.

Firecrackers, a thousand-year-old folk culture, also constitute the main industrial chain of these four places.

Since ancient times, the technology of fireworks manufacturing has hardly changed, mainly including rolling paper to make cylinders, filling gunpowder, planting leads, sealing mud and other steps, subdivided into 12 processes and 72 processes.

However, on the whole, the technical threshold for manufacturing fireworks is not high, and it is a typical labor-intensive industry.

However, the fireworks industry is not only a manufacturing industry, but also upstream industries such as papermaking, printing, saltpeter and mining, as well as downstream industries such as warehousing logistics and wholesale sales.

In the course of decades of development, the last thing that needs to be worried about fireworks companies is sales.

Since most of the fireworks factories in various places were collective enterprises in the early years, the production and sales were responsible for the local supply and marketing cooperatives; At the same time, because firecrackers have the particularity of dangerous goods, in the process of industrial restructuring, they have not been fully opened.

Today, due to the traditional business model of the fireworks industry, each link must be strictly supervised, and it has its special timeliness, which is difficult to form economies of scale like other industries.

The "ban on burns" is also based on safety concerns, as there has been a series of bloody accidents.

From 2007 to 2011, there were 503 fireworks accidents in China, resulting in 998 deaths; Among them, there were 86 major accidents, with 372 deaths; 8 major accidents, 107 deaths; There was one particularly serious accident, which killed 37 people.

Even, on the night of the Lantern Festival in 2009, the new main building of ** TV station caused a fire due to illegal fireworks, and the accident caused the death of one firefighter.

According to relevant statistics, at the end of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" (the end of 2015) compared with the beginning of the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" (2006), the number of fireworks safety accidents and the number of deaths caused by them decreased respectively. 4%。

Although improper discharge of fireworks is the direct cause of accidents, there are also many accidents due to the quality of fireworks themselves.

For thousands of years, fireworks enterprises in Hunan and other places have basically been handicraft workshops.

During the slack season, every household went into battle to assemble all kinds of fireworks with non-standard experience.

The traditional Liuyang fireworks rely on the manual production mode.

This extensive production mode is very prone to accidents during assembly, and problems such as non-standard gunpowder filling and too short fuses also occur from time to time.

However, the safety issues behind the "ban on burning" have also become an opportunity to force Liuyang fireworks enterprises to upgrade.

In 2007, Liuyang eliminated backward fireworks enterprises while directly taxing 15% as a special fund for the development of fireworks, to encourage enterprises to gradually transform to the field of research and development of new materials, new processes and new products.

Among them, the most representative is the "professional fireworks" developed by the Liuyang fireworks industry, that is, the CNC pyrotechnic system ignited by professionals in a specific outdoor open space, which is divided into four levels of ABCD according to its scale and danger.

In 2008, at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, the "Big Footprints" fireworks display designed by the artist Cai Guoqiang and his team left a deep impression on audiences all over the world.

One of the keys to completing this fireworks show was a set of CNC pyrotechnic systems that were at the forefront of the time.

Before the advent of professional fireworks, fireworks were a purely manual handicraft and even exposed to danger.

Along the imprint of "big footprints", many enterprises in Liuyang have also transformed from the production and sales of fireworks to the development of CNC pyrotechnic systems.

In 2010, Changsha City held a 20-minute Orange Island fireworks show every week, allowing Liuyang to begin to move towards the national festival CNC fireworks market.

At the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, Liuyang fireworks accounted for three-quarters; At the opening ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, more than half of the fireworks were supplied ...... by Liuyang

2014 New York New Year Fireworks **Silver Dali Fireworks.

However, the 300 million yuan market of cultural tourism fireworks is only a drop in the ocean in the Liuyang fireworks industry with a total amount of tens of billions of yuan.

The economic improvement of Liuyang's fireworks industry mainly depends on going to sea.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's fireworks exports in 2022 will be 407596 tons, a year-on-year increase of 262% for a total amount of 11409140,000 US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 418%。

The aforementioned ST Panda's overseas business accounted for nearly 85% of its revenue composition, and it earned nearly 2.2% in 2021 by exporting fireworks**500 million yuan.

What is intriguing is that this company canceled the Chinese New Year fireworks business in 2021 and transformed into a financial microloan.

No way, in 2020, the overseas revenue of this company's fireworks is 143.5 billion yuan, but the domestic is 15.02 million yuan ......It can only be said that the domestic fireworks business at that time was too unprofitable.

Fortunately, the ill-fated fireworks industry has ushered in the dawn in 2023.

In January 2023, Liuyang City officially announced that the total output value of the city's firecracker and fireworks industry in the previous year was 50 billion yuan.

You know, in 2022, this number is still 301500 million yuan. In just one year, the output value of fireworks in Liuyang has increased by nearly 20 billion yuan.

For Chinese, "the sound of firecrackers is one year old, and the spring breeze sends warmth into Tusu" is the memory and ritual of the Spring Festival engraved in the bones.

The roaring sound of firecrackers and brilliant fireworks carry people's expectations for the future.

Regardless of whether you set off firecrackers during the Spring Festival this year, we wish you all the best of luck at the beginning of the new year.

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