From the production of my country's first-generation photographic film, black-and-white film feature film, color film feature film, and civilian film, to the development of my country's first-generation color film and color photo paper, Lucky once became famous in the industry. With the rapid development of digital imaging technology, the film industry has gradually declined, and Lucky has also embarked on a road of transformation and development. How to transform the former "king of Chinese film"? With the concerns of netizens, a reporter from China Economic Net interviewed Wang Yingru, a member of the Party Committee and Deputy General Manager of China Lucky Film Group.

Moderator: We have noticed a set of data. From January to September 2010, Lucky Group's main operating income of film materials, mainly based on optical films for flat panel displays, increased by 102.3% year-on-year, accounting for 20% of the group's operating income, and profit accounting for the same period 40% of group profits. How does the new business achieve such gratifying performance? Currently, how does the group position this business segment?

Wang Yingru: Such achievements are not easy to come by. This is the preliminary result that Lucky Group has achieved in recent years to promote structural adjustment. With the rapid development of digital imaging technology, new challenges are posed to traditional services. In order to adapt to this change, Lucky Group has determined the development direction of product structure adjustment and industrial structure adjustment after analyzing the market and technology development trends and combining its own advantages.

The first is to adjust the original business to digital output materials in the product structure, including civilian, medical, printing and other industries; the second is to adjust the industrial structure to integrate film forming technology, coating technology, etc. The core technology accumulated by materials will be expanded horizontally into new areas after upgrading, such as the current flat panel display, optical film plays an important role in supporting the adjustment of industrial structure.

Moderator: Lucky once took the lead in my country's film production enterprises. What advantages does Lucky have when turning to the optical film industry?

Wang Yingru: It is very difficult for a company to make this adjustment. The development of digitalization is now a revolution. We have discovered that a technology will suddenly be replaced after more than 100 years of development, and the industry that Lucky has relied on for decades will no longer exist. Such an impact would be if there is no personal experience. It's hard to imagine. Digitization greatly shortens the life cycle of products, which requires enterprises to adjust their industrial structure.

Based on Lucky's existing core technology, we chose optical film as the breakthrough point for the transformation. This is mainly based on three reasons. First, the market prospects of optical film applications are very broad and belong to the sunrise industry. The second is technology-intensive and capital-intensive high value-added products, which are more suitable for Lucky. Third, the optical thin film technology has a certain correlation with Lucky's core technology.

Moderator: Now that we look back at Lucky's transformation, what experience and lessons are worth summarizing?

Wang Yingru: At present, Lucky's structural adjustment is showing initial results. There is still a long way to go in the future. The contribution of new business to the scale and efficiency of the company needs to be further improved. From the customer's point of view, the current quality, variety, and production capacity of our products cannot fully meet customer needs. From the big point of view, we have not made a big breakthrough in the industrial chain.

I think the necessary condition to support the transformation of enterprises is to have core technologies and adhere to their own principles. First of all, scientific decision-making is necessary. Where to adjust is a matter of direction. If you choose the wrong direction, it is impossible to have good results. Second, we must persist. Regardless of structural adjustment or transformation, you will encounter various problems and difficulties, sometimes beyond your imagination. In this case, you must persist to seize the opportunity. Third, we must have our own core technology, otherwise the transformation and structural adjustment will become a source of water.

Moderator: In the process of transformation, optical film is one of the relatively high-end LCD flat panel display manufacturing technologies. What do you think is the biggest technical problem facing Lucky?

Wang Yingru: In the high-end technical field, technical barriers are a big problem. Lucky has accumulated its own core technology in the development of photosensitive materials in the past few decades. The film-forming technology and coating technology mentioned above have a certain correlation with optical thin films, which means that we are in this field. It does not start from scratch.

Of course, it is far from enough to rely on past accumulation. While Lucky has been building new projects in recent years, it has been increasing investment in scientific research and development, and continuously developing new products and new technologies in line with structural adjustments. Now the company invests hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development every year, accounting for about 3% of sales revenue, which can provide strong support for technological innovation.

Moderator: What is the level of Lucky's optical film technology in the world? What is the competitive advantage?

Wang Yingru: After more than 100 years of development, photosensitive materials have gradually developed towards digitalization. When the photosensitive material finally entered the decline period, I think Lucky's photosensitive material technology was in the first echelon in the world. We have now mastered the key formulation technology of optical grade PC film and PT film. From an overall point of view, the product variety cannot fully meet the needs of customers, and breakthroughs are needed in large-size technology.

At present, the international competition for optical thin film technology is still very fierce. It belongs to the high-tech field. Lucky is a latecomer, and the competition is indeed very difficult. For this reason, our strategy is to use our core competitiveness to form a comparative advantage. The most important thing is cost control ability and price competitiveness.

Moderator: my country is a big consumer and producer of TV sets. Does this create a better environment for the development of optical films? How will Lucky accelerate the transformation of its development mode during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period?

Wang Yingru: my country is a big country in the manufacture of computers and televisions, as well as a big consumer country, which brings a lot of market space to Lucky. Our country has invested heavily in flat panel display technology in the past few years. Large-scale panel production lines have been put into operation continuously, and the future market space is huge. This has brought great challenges to Lucky and also put forward higher requirements. At present, my country is also encouraging the development of strategic emerging industries. Lucky has always been engaged in the production of high-tech products. The areas where we are now making structural adjustments are new materials. This has a very strong correlation with the direction of Lucky's structural adjustment.

During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, Lucky will continue to promote product structure adjustment and industrial structure adjustment. In the future, it will focus on the development of imaging information, printing materials, film materials and coating materials. The imaging information is mainly civilian and medical materials. The printing field is mainly to convert traditional printing photosensitive materials into digital printing output materials. Film materials and coating materials will focus on the development of optical-grade PC films and PT films, and product varieties will be serialized and scaled. I hope that in 2015, optical-grade PT films will account for more than 30% of the group’s sales, and the production capacity of PC films will be expanded by 4 to 6 times.