CRI听力:New Momentum Grows for Machine Manufacturing Sector

The Chinese machine manufacturing sector has grown rapidly in the past five years and now dominates over one third of the global market and is valued at over 2 trillion RMB as of last year.

Chinese government has launched a "Made in China" campaign with a host of tax concessions in a bid to support this fast growing sector.

For more on this, CRI's Poornima Weerasekara.

The Chinese central government has decided to upgrade its "Made in China" campaign by encouraging domestic enterprises to increase high-tech imports and research and development capacity.

Su Bo, the Vice Minister of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said the machine manufacturing sector now formed the bedrock of China's industrial power house.

"Every economic superpower, when we look at its development history, should have had a strong and powerful manufacturing equipment industry. So, the basic of competitions between countries and economies is the competition between their manufacturing machinery. And currently, the core of the competition lies in high-end manufacturing equipment".

But China's manufacturing machinery sector has long been dominated by foreign brands, mainly due to the lack of cutting-edge technology.

"It was not easy for Chinese manufacturing machines to find its foothold in a global market. Earlier we had to spend foreign currency to import old machinery. But today we are in a position where we export our new machines to the world. This marks a turning point for China's manufacturing equipment industry. We are just a small part of it".

Alongside the rapid growth in its manufacturing sector, after the country opening up, China has tried to position itself higher-up in the manufacturing value chain. In this process it also aimed at developing a sound industrial system for manufacturing machinery.

The output value of the Chinese manufacturing equipment sector increased by 17.5 percent last year. The sector doubled its output when compared to production levels in 2008.

A preliminary gauge of Chinese manufacturing activity reached an 18-month high in July, in a sign that Beijing's efforts to stimulate the economy are having an impact.

Chinese premier Li Keqiang also highlighted the huge leap made by Chinese companies in the Machine manufacturing sector, during his visit to Romania last year.

"'Made in China' products have hit the globe. With the boom of our economy in the past few years, China has developed a mature manufacturing industry that is both competitive and reliable, spanning across various key sectors such as railway system, nuclear power, electricity, highway system, ports and telecommunications".

A success story of China's machine manufacturing sector, is how it broke the monopoly of American, European and Japanese companies which dominated the Excavator production industry. It took China more than ten years to break into this market, but earlier this year, it climbed up to become the second largest manufacturer of Excavators globally.

"Made in China" products are also popular in the domestic market. For example, Two giant excavators made by China Railway Tunneling Equipment are now being used in digging underground tunnels in Zhengzhou, capital city of He'nan province.

Yang Hongjun, the project manager at the Zhengzhou tunnel development project said these two excavators helped a lot in the construction and made it possible to finish their task ahead of time.

"Manual work is very risky. Machine operations are safer more efficient and cleaner. You can even wear leather shoes on site, because there is not much dust. But if it is a manual operation, there is dust everywhere and the hardest part is safety control".

The traditional manual operations involved in digging up a railway tunnel would take at least one year, but with excavators, it only takes two months. It also reduces the sound pollution and dust pollution. This new brand of Chinese excavators have already grabbed half of the domestic market share by June this year and is now deployed in railway construction projects in over 20 cities across China.

Apart from the impressive performance and low cost, the ability to provide highly individualized services is what sets Chinese manufacturers of complex machines apart from their foreign competition.

"Construction processes are different from customer to customer, so we let them participate in the design and manufacturing process to make a more individualized machine. By doing this, our customers could use it to increase production."

In 2013, China Railway Tunneling Equipment, or CRTE, acquired a long-term partner, Germany's Wirth Gmbh, a well-known tunnel excavator manufacturer. A senior representative of Wirth Gmbh said China Railway Equipment had the best acquisition bid.

"We had several companies interested, but CRTE was the most professional company. It was the company that has the highest ambitions, and it is the company we believe can develop the tunneling business in the best way".

After the acquisition, CRTE became the top excavator manufacturer in China and the second largest in the world.

The ability to produce its own heavy machinery has also enables China to complete large –scale infrastructure development projects across the globe.

Economic cooperation between Turkey and China has continued to grow with Chinese firms helping finish one of the signature projects of the Turkish government in connecting the capital Ankara with the country's largest city, Istanbul through the high-speed railway link.

Contracted by CRTE, Turkey's Ankara-Istanbul high-speed railway was officially opened on July 25 this year, which has become one of China's flagship international development corporation projects.

CRTE has set up its marketing centers in Hongkong, Germany, Brazil and Australia. It is also actively exploring new markets in the developing world like Iran, Azerbaijan, India and Russia.

Yang Huayong, an expert from the Chinese Academy of Engineering talked about the rapid rise of the China Railway Engineering Equipment Group, which is a key player in China's Manufacturing machine's industry.

"China Railway Engineering Equipment Group's shield machines are of world's leading technology. This company's products dominate the Chinese market. It is also ranked second as the largest manufacturer of industrial machinery in its sectors".

The strength of the Manufacturing machine's industry is an indicator of a country's development in science and technology. The rise of China's equipment manufacturing has helped bridge its technology divide with the West and is helping China maintain its position as the top manufacturing power house in the world.

For CRI, I'm Poornima Weerasekara.