For a long time, overseas construction machinery giants have banded together to lock down the core technologies of hydraulic parts, main pumps, and electronic control systems, and relied on parts and components to monopolize the domestic heavy industry.
Foreign media have repeatedly asserted that domestic excavators and loaders will never go abroad due to the lack of imported key parts.
A few years later, the market situation changed drastically. Domestic construction machinery not only captured most of the domestic market, but also dominated the global export list all year round. The technical shackles of the past have suddenly become a stepping stone for the rise of domestic industries.
From the end of the last century to around 2010, the domestic construction machinery industry had long been subject to the monopoly of overseas parts and components.
More than 70% of the excavator’s hydraulic system, multi-way valves, and precision plunger pumps are supplied by German and Japanese brands.
Foreign-funded enterprises control core patents, restrict the independent export of high-end parts and strictly control the leakage of technical drawings, and at the same time increase the pricing of parts at will.
The price of an imported hydraulic assembly often accounts for 30% of the cost of the entire excavator, and the production profits of domestic complete machine manufacturers are continuously compressed.
Once overseas supply cycles tighten, many small and medium-sized construction machinery companies are forced to reduce production and suspend production.
Overseas industry organizations continue to release research and judgment reports: The barriers to precision hydraulics in engineering machinery are extremely high, and it is difficult for China to make breakthroughs through self-research in a short time. The high-end global engineering equipment market will always be controlled by Europe, the United States and Japan.
In order to get rid of the passive situation of being stuck, domestic leading heavy industry companies have joined forces with domestic hydraulic research institutes and university laboratories to start a road to localization that has lasted for more than ten years.
Early research and development encountered obstacles everywhere. Material accuracy was not up to standard, seal failure rates were high, and electronic control matching was not coordinated. Countless R&D engineers took root in laboratories and production workshops to repeatedly improve formulas and polish processing techniques.
The national supporting industry support policy has been implemented, and upstream and downstream supporting small and medium-sized enterprises have followed suit. From the smelting of special steel to the production of sealed components, a local supporting industry chain has been gradually built.
After multiple rounds of technology iterations, domestic hydraulic systems and electronic control assemblies have successively achieved mass production.
The core components of small and medium-sized excavators that were the first to achieve breakthroughs were fully localized, and gradually extended to key components of large-tonnage mining excavators, large loaders, and crawler cranes.
Relying on a complete local supporting chain, the production cost of domestic construction machinery has dropped significantly, and the cost-effectiveness of the products has quickly become apparent.
Domestic infrastructure, mining, and farmland water conservancy projects give priority to domestic equipment. In just a few years, the domestic market share of domestic construction machinery has increased from less than 30% to more than 90%.
Market changes are directly reflected in foreign trade data.
In the past five years, my country’s export volume of excavators, cranes, and road rollers has ranked first in the world, with products sold to hundreds of countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe.
A large number of overseas infrastructure projects purchase domestic heavy industry equipment in bulk, and the market share of Japanese and German construction machinery brands that once monopolized the global market has shrunk year by year.
Many well-established overseas parts factories have seen sharp declines in orders, and have even begun to purchase domestically produced hydraulic parts from my country to assemble complete machines.
Looking back at the overseas manufacturers who initially joined forces to block the technology, due to the shrinking of the local manufacturing industry and the closure of upstream and downstream supporting factories, the cost of parts production has increased year by year, and product prices have lost competitiveness.
The original intention was to rely on technology monopoly to reap the dividends of the Chinese market, but the continued blockade has accelerated the self-reliance and self-reliance of China’s entire construction machinery industry chain.
The localization of construction machinery has brought real benefits to people’s livelihood.
The cost of infrastructure construction has been steadily optimized due to the price reduction of engineering equipment. The cost of rural road construction, farmland reconstruction, and urban pipeline network construction has been reduced, and infrastructure construction in various places has been implemented faster.
The local heavy industry is booming, with supporting factories across the country employing hundreds of thousands of industrial workers, driving upstream and downstream local real economic income in machining, casting, and hardware.
From high-priced outsourcing of core components to independent research and development and products exported to the world, the counterattack of domestic heavy industry has once again confirmed a rule: external technological blockade can never stop down-to-earth manufacturing in China.
The more extreme pressure is exerted, the more it can stimulate the research resilience of domestic industries.
The progress of manufacturing in a great country cannot be separated from the perseverance of generations of scientific researchers and industrial workers.
Like and forward if you agree with the rise of domestic products, let’s witness the continued march of Made in China towards the world.
