China's construction machinery industry embarks on the road to internationalization

Following the successful completion of the  promotional event for construction machinery brands at the 2017 Las Vegas Construction Machinery Show, the second "China Construction Machinery Brand Promotion Series" was held at the Paris Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center in France on April 23, 2018. More than 130 companies and parts manufacturers including XCMG, Zoomlion, and Sany Heavy Industry gathered in France, further opening the way for Chinese brand construction machinery groups to go global.

China's construction machinery brand promotion series is an important part of the implementation plan of the Ministry of Commerce's independent brand export growth action plan, aiming to strengthen foreign trade brand building, expand independent brand exports, and especially to promote a number of high-quality construction machinery brands to the world.

In recent years, the Chinese government has vigorously promoted the construction of foreign trade independent brands and continued to increase the overseas promotion of independent brands. As a hub industry for infrastructure construction interconnection in the "Belt and Road" initiative, the construction machinery industry has received strong support and active encouragement from the government, and the pace of "going out" has continued to accelerate.

After decades of development, China's construction machinery has now formed a complete industrial chain, and a number of companies with international influence and reputation have emerged.

China has more than 30,000 kilometers of high-speed railways, more than 130,000 kilometers of expressways, and more than 5,000 kilometers of subways. China ranks in the world in bridge construction and has the fastest nuclear power construction in the world. These construction projects have provided the largest market demand for construction machinery and promoted the development of the construction machinery manufacturing industry. Thanks to the continuous and large-scale construction of domestic infrastructure, China has developed into the world's largest construction machinery market.

Wang Guiqing, vice president of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, said that while the market continues to grow, China's machinery industry has also achieved good results in technological progress. At present, China has built the world's complete construction machinery production chain, and all parts can be produced in China. At the same time, China's construction machinery industry has very good openness and compatibility internationally. Major global construction machinery manufacturers have established manufacturing bases in China through mergers, joint ventures, and wholly-owned enterprises, and many Chinese construction machinery companies also have manufacturing bases in many parts of the world.

At the same time, a number of engineering machinery companies with certain influence in the world have emerged continuously, and have created many  in the field of engineering machinery. The output of concrete machinery, cranes, excavators, loaders, rollers and other products ranks in the world. The global market favors Chinese engineering machinery equipment, and the export volume continues to increase. In 2001, the export volume was 1.56 billion US dollars, and by 2017, this figure had grown to 14.6 billion US dollars.

Li Na, deputy director of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the construction of foreign trade independent brands is a strategic measure to cultivate new advantages in foreign trade competition and an important part of promoting the construction of a strong trading nation. In recent years, the Ministry of Commerce has actively implemented the action plan for the growth of independent brand exports. For example, it has promoted the establishment of a customs statistics system for brand exports, carefully created an overseas brand exhibition for high-quality Chinese products, set up brand booths at the Canton Fair, implemented the "Qingfeng" action to combat infringing and counterfeit goods, supported the construction of overseas marketing networks, and provided insurance for large-scale complete sets of equipment, encouraged enterprises to go out and acquire foreign brands, carried out brand work training, and summarized and promoted good experiences and practices in brand work in various places and enterprises.

At the same time, in the specific work, we will earnestly guide local governments, industry organizations and enterprises to adapt to the situation, change their concepts, enhance their understanding, take positive actions, regard the construction of independent brands as a systematic project for the strong trade of a big country, and carry out brand cultivation work in an all-round and multi-channel manner.

It is understood that at present, all parts of the country attach great importance to and actively innovate the cultivation of independent brands, and carry out in-depth brand cultivation activities, such as Zhejiang Province launching the "Quality Zhejiang Products, Marketing World" three-year project, Jiangsu Province carrying out the "Independent Brand +" innovation activities, Shandong Province organizing the "Shandong Brand Global Tour" promotion, and Guangdong Province's "One Town One Exhibition" exhibition industry brand promotion model.

At the same time, a number of exemplary independent brand export enterprises have emerged across the country, and their exports have completed a gorgeous transformation from OEM production to independent brands, with continuous expansion of international influence and extensive expansion of sales channels. Some brands have become global benchmarks in the industry.

At present, manufacturing enterprises have realized the transformation from OEM to ODM, and are able to independently complete the design, research and development and manufacturing of products, and produce high-quality products, laying a more solid industrial foundation for the construction of my country's independent brands and creating favorable conditions for further transformation to OBM.

"Since 2017, we have selected manufacturing industries with traditional advantages such as engineering machinery and textiles, and promoted them overseas through professional overseas brand exhibitions, and achieved very good results. We carefully selected enterprises that can represent the level of Chinese brands to form the "Chinese National Team" to compete. Taking engineering machinery as an example, the collective display of engineering machinery such as XCMG Group, Liugong Group, Shantui Engineering, SINOMACH Heavy Industry, Zoomlion Heavy Industry, and Sany Group not only demonstrated the determination of China's manufacturing industry to move towards high-end and the confidence in Chinese brands, but also the collective display effect far exceeded the individual enterprises' single fight," said Li Na. With high-quality and high-level exhibitions and displays, carefully designed promotion activities, unique brand conferences, and face-to-face communication between enterprises, the brand effect of Made in China is more intuitive and vivid, changing the traditional concept of Made in China in foreign markets.

In 2018, the Ministry of Commerce continued to support the French Engineering Machinery Overseas Brand Exhibition. The organizer carefully designed the exhibition plan and focused its support on independent brands that truly have main intellectual property rights, are independently developed by enterprises, and are sold in the international market.

Li Na said that brand building is an important means to achieve structural adjustment of my country's foreign trade exports and high-quality economic development. The next step is to fully realize the importance of cultivating independent foreign trade brands for stabilizing foreign trade growth, adjusting the structure, consolidating the status of a major trading country, and promoting the construction of a strong trading country. At the same time, we will continue to strengthen policy guidance for foreign trade enterprises, and take independent foreign trade brands as the core elements of the construction of foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases, trade platforms, and international marketing networks; give full play to the role of horizontal collaboration and vertical linkage mechanisms in brand work, actively work with relevant departments to promote institutional and mechanism innovation, form a policy support force, and create a legalized and international development environment for the construction of independent foreign trade brands.