In 2026, Jining’s construction machinery industry is undergoing a profound change from “fighting alone” to “chain resonance”.
Walking into the green and intelligent manufacturing base of Shandong Hengwang Group in Rencheng District, hundreds of small machinery and equipment are neatly arrayed, and large bulldozers and excavators are everywhere.
Welding flowers are flying in the workshop, and the production line is operating at full capacity.
Relying on Africa’s infrastructure upgrades and energy development needs, Hengwang’s exports of core products such as well-sinking machinery and drilling machinery have continued to rise, with exports to Africa doubling in 2025.
Recently, CCTV’s “Chao Wen Tian Xia” focused on this “going overseas” craze, and Hengwang has become a vivid footnote for Jining’s construction machinery to go global.
Hengwang’s vitality reflects the deep changes in Jining’s construction machinery industry.
In recent years, Jining has listed construction machinery as a top priority among the “232” advantageous industrial clusters and 15 iconic industrial chains, and has innovatively established a “five-chain integration” collaborative mechanism to promote the integrated development of the industrial chain, talent chain, education chain, innovation chain, and financial chain.
This important industrial town in southern Shandong is changing from “working alone” among enterprises to “chain resonance” and is glowing with new vitality.
The construction machinery industry chain is Jining’s “precious asset” and an important pillar of the industrial economy.
Facing major changes unseen in a century, Jining’s construction machinery industry faces triple challenges: manpower shortage, efficiency bottlenecks, and environmental pressure.
In this regard, Li Shizhen, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Shantui Construction Machinery Co., Ltd., believes that the company is standing at the crossroads of change, and only technological breakthroughs can change the predicament.
Shantui Co., Ltd. has gone through many technological changes in the more than 70 years since its establishment.
Today, China’s leading loader company has chosen a strategic attempt to transform to AI.
In June 2025, Shantui Co., Ltd. released the world’s first AI intelligent bulldozer.
This AI bulldozer is equipped with a large intelligent model and has a certain degree of independent thinking ability. It can automatically construct without driver intervention and optimize the construction plan based on real-time data.
In Li Shizhen’s view, Shantui shares can take the lead in transforming to AI thanks to its accumulation in three aspects.
First of all, it has the industry’s only full industry chain advantage, and has collaborated with the world’s eight major R&D centers to achieve a series of technological breakthroughs. Secondly, it has an industry-leading open industry-university-research platform, cooperating with universities, colleges and central state-owned enterprises. It is the earliest to research smart technology in the bulldozer industry, has the highest investment ratio, and is the first to realize commercialization. Thirdly, Shantui has the most complete model spectrum (products), technology platform and patent protection in the industry.
The gathering of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain is helping Jining accelerate the formation of an industrial ecology led by hosts, complete supporting facilities, and collaborative linkage.
The Komatsu Global Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Base project located in Jining High-tech Zone is the third global supply base of Japan’s Komatsu Corporation. Upon completion, it will become Komatsu’s global complete machine and parts supply center, of which parts supply will account for 70% of the global market.
The Great Wall Heavy Industries New Energy Engineering Machinery Headquarters Base, also located in Jining High-tech Zone, has further completed the city’s construction machinery industry puzzle. Some of the production lines of the project (first phase) have been put into operation, which also confirms the strong attraction of Jining’s excellent business environment to industrial chain enterprises.
In recent years, Jining has deployed innovation chains around the industrial chain, integrated scientific and technological innovation forces and superior resources, and vigorously promoted the deep integration of the industrial chain and innovation chain.
Establish joint school-enterprise laboratories and industrial innovation platforms to accelerate key technology research and achievement transformation, and allow new technologies to be quickly integrated into the entire production chain.
Promote the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy, realize equipment networking and data sharing through the industrial Internet platform, popularize smart factories and unmanned workshops in various industries, and increase production efficiency by more than 30% on average; promote the deep integration of advanced manufacturing and modern service industries, embed production services such as logistics and warehousing, R&D and design into the manufacturing process, and form a new value-added model of “manufacturing + service”.
In April, December 2025 and January this year, Jining City held three construction machinery industry chain integration and solidification matchmaking conferences, organizing upstream and downstream construction machinery enterprises, vocational schools, and financial institutions in the city to participate in the conference. Chain master companies such as Shantui Co., Ltd. released talent demand lists on site, and vocational colleges released talent training and technical service plans to promote on-site signing and cooperation between schools and enterprises.
In February 2026, Jining Technician College signed a school-enterprise cooperation agreement with Shandong Zhengfang Hetai Zhiqi Machinery Co., Ltd. to jointly build a national-level skills master workstation. Focusing on the high-end equipment manufacturing field of engineering machinery, it will focus on skill inheritance, technical research, craftsman cultivation, and achievement transformation, and carry out all-round cooperation such as customized talent training, joint construction of practical training bases, and joint research on core courses.
Faced with enterprises’ urgent need for high-end talents, Jining gives full play to its role as a high-level talent platform and supports enterprises in building national-level postdoctoral scientific research workstations, provincial postdoctoral innovation practice bases and other talent platforms to attract and gather high-level innovative talents.
At present, the city has established 29 postdoctoral scientific research workstations and 86 provincial postdoctoral innovation practice bases, with a total of 430 postdoctoral students recruited.
In addition, Jining has also vigorously implemented a special plan for flexible talent introduction, carried out the construction of “talent enclaves” and “platform enclaves” for schools, local enterprises, and promoted models such as “weekend engineers”, “migratory bird experts” and “online think tanks” to attract high-end intelligence to “gather in Jining”.
Since 2025, the city has flexibly introduced more than 310 high-level talents of various types and solved more than 460 industrial technical problems.
Various vocational skills competitions are the epitome of Jining’s efforts to cultivate talents through competitions and strengthen the city through skills.
Closely following the construction goal of “Skills Jining”, Jining has created a number of skills competition brands with local characteristics such as “Liangshan Good Welding”, Zoucheng Coal Chemicals, and Wenshang Textile. Since 2025, 24,400 new high-skilled talents have been added.
The transformation of competition results is a key part of the construction of Jining’s “talent chain”. Gao Xingliang, a national technical expert and coal industry expert who stood out in the competition, is a vivid example.
Relying on the rich experience accumulated in the competition, he overcame 52 technical difficulties, obtained 21 national patents, 11 innovation achievement awards at the provincial and ministerial level or above, and directly created economic benefits exceeding 10 million yuan.
The reporter learned from the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau that the city has now built 2 national-level high-skilled talent training bases, 4 national-level skill master studios, 16 Qilu skill master specialty workstations, 9 provincial technician workstations, and 124 Jining skill master studios. The “master-led, echelon training, and radiation-driven” wild goose array pattern has gradually taken shape, laying a solid foundation for the construction of Jining’s high-skilled talent team.
The sustainable development of the industrial chain is inseparable from the continuous supply of internal talents. Focusing on the talent needs of industrial development, Jining has also created a talent cultivation path that integrates industry and education, science and education, to make talent training more grounded.
Whether it is a production workshop with waving cantilevers and splashing welding flowers, or an overseas warehouse with frequent trade exchanges; whether it is offline daily business needs or various online chain supply transactions, as an important engine for regional and industrial development, the precise drip irrigation and system support of financial “living water” are indispensable.
Shandong Lipai Machinery Group Co., Ltd.’s main products, small excavators, are exported to North America, South America, Eastern Europe, East Asia and other regions, and have obtained a number of design patents.
As the construction machinery industry has improved in recent years, the company’s revenue and profitability have shown a growth trend.
However, enterprises still face many bottlenecks in going global in the process of globalization.
China Merchants Bank Jining Branch combines the business characteristics and diversified needs of the enterprise to tailor a four-in-one global comprehensive financial service plan of “import procurement + export collection + trade financing + customs clearance convenience”, which not only meets the enterprise’s diversified international trade financing needs, but also greatly improves customs clearance efficiency.
In terms of “nourishing” core enterprises and small and micro entities, many banks in Jining have taken the initiative to connect and implement precise policies.
Today, cooperation between banks and enterprises is smoother, and many problems are solved through face-to-face communication. Financial institutions closely follow the differentiated financing needs of enterprises and enrich the matrix of diversified specialty products.
At the same time, Jining has been committed to strengthening inclusive financial services, giving full play to the government’s service and guidance role, providing financing support to private enterprises through various measures, and promoting enterprise innovation, development, upgrading and transformation.
The reporter learned from the Municipal Financial Stability and Development Leading Group Office that as of the end of December 2025, the city’s loan balance was 910.096 billion yuan, an increase of 5.739 billion yuan from November and an increase of 87.321 billion yuan from the beginning of the year, an increase of 10.61%, ranking second in the province.
At the same time, Jining promotes the improvement of quality and efficiency of government financing guarantee institutions. The capital of the city’s financial credit guarantee has increased to 1.713 billion yuan. As of the end of December 2025, the registered business amount in the province is 15.521 billion yuan, ranking third in the province.
The services of the financial chain are not only for enterprises, but also benefit the development of the talent chain.
Jining provides policy support such as talent introduction subsidies and family incentives to young talents such as doctors and masters who are introduced full-time by enterprises, schools, scientific research institutes, etc. and who come to Jining to start their own businesses. It implements the five major actions of “Entrepreneurship in Jining” and provides “one-stop” services for entrepreneurial guaranteed loans to support all types of talents to focus on innovation and entrepreneurship in key industries, scientific and technological innovation and other fields. It also improves the “green channel” service for high-level talents, providing them with 23 types of services such as medical treatment, transportation, and credit support to protect the safe development of talents.
In 2025, the output value of industrial enterprises above designated size in the city’s construction machinery industry chain will increase by 5.8% year-on-year.
From a traditional coal city to a strong manufacturing city, from “working alone” to “chain resonance”, Jining is taking the “number one project” as the traction, anchoring the goal of “one trillion, five doublings”, and bursting with vitality in integrated development.
