Changsha's output of construction machinery ranks first for 14 consecturive years

Recently, the world's leading investment bank, Gaosheng Group, released a research report focusing on the capacity cycles of seven major industries: photovoltaics, lithium batteries, new energy vehicles, air conditioners, steel, power semiconductors, and construction machinery.

The research report points out that my country's construction machinery industry is still in a downward cycle, but with the stabilization of new real estate construction and the industry entering an equipment renewal cycle, domestic market demand is expected to bottom out in 2024-2025, and the "cold winter" of the domestic construction machinery industry is expected to end.

In this harsh winter, the overall level of Changsha's engineering machinery industry still rose against the trend, and gradually formed an industrial spatial layout of "2+1+N", namely 2 leading areas: Changsha Economic and Technological Development Zone, Hunan Xiangjiang New Area (Changsha Hi-tech Zone), 1 characteristic agglomeration area: Ningxiang Hi-tech Zone, and multiple supporting supply areas: Wangcheng Economic and Technological Development Zone, Liuyang Economic and Technological Development Zone, Yuhua Economic and Technological Development Zone, etc.

It is worth mentioning that in 2023, the city's engineering machinery industry will achieve an output value of over 200 billion yuan, accounting for about 25% of the national total, ranking first in the country for 14 consecutive years. What are the tricks of Changsha's engineering machinery industry to "keep warm"? The reporter interviewed a number of companies and departments.

Thanks to the vigorous development of new domestic infrastructure in the early years, Changsha's construction machinery industry has caught up with the fast train of development, and its output value has risen along with the market. In recent years, leading enterprises in Changsha's construction machinery have turned their attention to exploring overseas markets.

The decisive decision has brought great rewards to the companies: in the first half of this year, Sany Heavy Industry's overseas revenue accounted for 62.23%, Zoomlion's overseas revenue increased by 43.90% year-on-year, Shanhe Intelligent International accounted for 59.15%, and China Railway Construction Heavy Industry's overseas market revenue increased by 74% year-on-year.

The overall growth in overseas revenue performance is a true reflection of Changsha's construction machinery companies' active "going global" efforts.

Sany Group has conquered the European market by setting up offices and branches, upgrading and building Sany Europe Bedburg Industrial Park and other measures. On the product side, Sany has also gradually adjusted from concrete machinery to mobile port machinery, excavators, crawler cranes and pile drivers. In the first five months of this year, Sany Group's No. 18 plant received 1,500 batches of foreign guests, an increase of 40% year-on-year. Zoomlion launched 197 new products overseas in the first half of the year, and nearly 300 products passed international certification. The fifth shield machine in the series exported to Italy by China Railway Construction Heavy Industry rolled off the production line; African customers ordered more than 100 million yuan of Shanhe Intelligent Mining and Excavation complete sets of equipment.

Driven by leading enterprises, from January to August this year, Changsha exported a total of 20.12 billion yuan of construction machinery, a year-on-year increase of 29%, accounting for 92.5% of the province's total construction machinery exports. The recognition of "Made in Changsha" in overseas markets has continued to increase.

"The establishment of Hunan Guozhong Zhilian Engineering Machinery Research Institute has enabled Changsha's engineering machinery industry to move from single-handedly fighting to collaborative innovation." Yuan Zhen, general manager of Guozhong Zhilian, said that with the rapid advancement of the internationalization of Changsha's engineering machinery companies, the overlap of high-end products and technologies with developed countries has further increased, and the head-on competition in the industrial chain and value chain has become increasingly fierce. It is impossible to achieve breakthrough independent innovation by relying solely on one company. Building a collaborative innovation platform and breaking through the bottleneck constraints of common key technologies in the industrial chain have become important means to promote the high-quality development of the engineering machinery industry.

The Guozhong Zhilian mentioned by Yuan Zhen was established at the end of 2021. It was jointly established by 14 corporate units including Sany Heavy Industry, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co., Ltd., Shanhe Intelligent, China Railway Construction Heavy Industry, and Xingbang Intelligent. It is the operating entity of Changsha’s establishment of the National Engineering Machinery Manufacturing Innovation Center.

It is worth mentioning that the establishment of a national engineering machinery manufacturing innovation center is a key link in building a world-class engineering machinery advanced manufacturing cluster. The municipal government held a special meeting to study policy support. The Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology and the Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology went to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology many times to report on Hunan's work on establishing a national engineering machinery manufacturing innovation center, and invited relevant persons in charge of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's Science and Technology Department to Changsha for on-site inspections and guidance on the establishment. At present, the city's creation work has achieved a leap from "building a framework" to "strengthening functions", and is being carried out in an all-round way with greater determination and greater efforts.

At present, Guozhong Zhilian has built "one platform, three laboratories, one base and one center", namely, the engineering machinery inspection and testing cloud platform, hydraulic pump/motor laboratory, oil product testing laboratory, non-destructive testing laboratory, high-end components and basic process pilot base, and engineering machinery international certification center.

"Export certification, inspection and testing are common needs of all companies." A relevant person in charge of Sany Group said that the construction of the platform has played a strong enabling role in the development of enterprises.

What is export certification? Before exporting construction machinery and equipment to a certain country or region, the other party’s qualification certification must be obtained first. In the past, enterprises could only go to other places to “register” and queue up for certification, which was both time-consuming and costly. With the completion of the International Certification Center for Construction Machinery, enterprises can complete certification at their “doorstep”.

At the same time, Guozhong Zhilian has jointly built a number of laboratories with various special enterprises. Relying on the strengths of each enterprise, it will promote the accelerated incubation of more innovative technologies and enable more scientific research results to be smoothly transformed.

Leading enterprises can go overseas to find "warm" markets, but how can small and medium-sized enterprises upgrade?

In 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the first batch of "small and medium-sized enterprise digital transformation city pilot" list, and Changsha was shortlisted. "We combined the city's industrial foundation status and unique endowments, taking into account both emerging and traditional industries, and identified four pilot sub-sectors: engineering machinery, advanced computing, biomedicine, and fireworks and firecrackers," said a relevant person in charge of the Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology.

The answer is obvious - SMEs have ignited the fire of digital transformation to hedge against the pressure brought by the downward cycle. In order to promote the smooth digital transformation of SMEs, the Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, Changsha Economic Development Zone, Municipal Engineering Machinery Industry Chain Office, Guozhong Zhilian and other leading units have taken innovative measures to develop a "Changsha Path" to promote the transformation and upgrading of SMEs -

Build a "1+1+N" think tank promotion model for each sub-industry, establish a "product supermarket + industry platform + small, fast, light and accurate" product supply model, organize industry digital transformation supply and demand matching "roadshow" activities, help companies identify their own needs, reduce the cost of digital transformation of companies, and stimulate the service vitality of service providers.

Changsha held two supply-demand matchmaking meetings. The first meeting aimed to diagnose the current transformation difficulties faced by enterprises, clarify the transformation needs of manufacturing enterprises, and match each manufacturing enterprise with an integrated service provider to act as a "transformation doctor." After the first phase of running-in, the second supply-demand matchmaking meeting was held to "prescribe medicine" for the problems diagnosed in the first phase in the form of "matching."

"The advantage of doing this is that companies have two rounds of choices and can choose their own digital transformation path more objectively and multi-dimensionally," said Zhang Shouquan, assistant to the general manager of Guozhong Zhilian.

At present, the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises in Changsha's engineering machinery industry is currently in the process of matching supply and demand for the second batch of pilot enterprises. A total of 89 small and medium-sized enterprises are carrying out digital transformation. The first batch of 12 pilot enterprises will complete the acceptance around November this year. "As the transformation is nearing completion, our production efficiency has been significantly improved, and our market competitiveness has also been correspondingly enhanced." said a relevant person in charge of Changsha Baitong New Materials Technology Co., Ltd.